What Implementation Partners and Customers Need to Know Right Now
| Release | 2026 Release Wave 1 (April – September 2026) |
| Version | Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central 28.0 |
| Audience | Implementation Partners & End Customers |
| Key Theme | Agentic AI – from Copilot assistance to autonomous automation |
| Source | Microsoft Learn / Dynamics 365 Release Plan |
Introduction: A Watershed Moment for Business Central
Microsoft rolled out Dynamics 365 Business Central 2026 Release Wave 1 in April 2026, marking the general availability of version 28.0. But this is far more than a routine update. With Wave 1, Microsoft has shifted the conversation from AI-assisted work to AI-driven work – introducing autonomous agents that can handle complete end-to-end business processes with minimal human intervention.
If you are an implementation partner, this release fundamentally changes how you will architect solutions and advise clients. If you are a business owner or finance professional running Business Central, this wave puts genuine AI co-workers at your disposal – ones that can read emails, match invoices, create purchase orders, and surface financial insights, all without you lifting a finger.
This article walks through the headline capabilities, what they mean in practice, and the steps both partners and customers should take today to get ready.
From Copilot to Autopilot: Understanding Agentic AI
Business Central has had Copilot capabilities since 2023 – a helpful assistant that could suggest, summarise, and answer questions. Wave 1 2026 takes a decisive step further. Microsoft now calls this evolution agentic ERP, where AI agents do not just suggest an action but actually execute it.
Think of the difference this way:
- Copilot (2023–2025): ‘Here is a suggested purchase order based on your stock levels. Would you like to create it?’
- Agent (2026): The agent monitors stock, drafts the purchase order, matches it to an incoming vendor invoice, routes it for approval, and posts the receipt – all while keeping a complete audit trail visible to you.
According to Microsoft’s official release plan, Business Central Wave 1 2026 ‘accelerates the move to intelligent ERP with AI-powered agents that automate sales and purchase scenarios.’ Copilot itself is included in all Business Central licences at no additional cost, giving every user access to an ever-growing set of skills – to guide, find, compare, analyse, suggest, and summarise within their natural workflow.
The Built-in Agents: Payables Agent & Sales Order Agent
Microsoft ships two powerful built-in agents in Wave 1 that target the most time-consuming clerical work in any SMB finance and sales team.
Payables Agent: Your Autonomous AP Clerk
The Payables Agent automates accounts payable end-to-end. It reads incoming vendor emails, extracts invoice data using AI, matches the invoice to the correct vendor and purchase order, and prepares the document for human approval – all without anyone having to key in a single line.
A standout new capability in Wave 1 is automatic email categorisation for shared inboxes. Finance teams that manage a high volume of vendor communications will find that the agent routes and labels messages automatically, ensuring nothing gets missed and the right person sees the right email at the right time.
Additionally, the purchase invoice matching workflow has been enhanced: you can now match invoice lines directly to purchase order lines without requiring a posted receipt first, and the system will automatically post the receipt during invoicing. This streamlines a process that historically required multiple manual steps.
Sales Order Agent: From Customer Email to Posted Order
The Sales Order Agent covers the order-to-cash cycle. When a customer sends a purchase order or sales enquiry by email, the agent reads the document, identifies the correct customer record, maps the product lines, and creates a sales order in Business Central – ready for review and fulfilment.
For businesses processing dozens or hundreds of sales orders daily, this represents a transformative reduction in administrative overhead and the near-elimination of manual data-entry errors.
Custom Agent Design: Build AI Workflows for Your Business
Perhaps the most significant capability introduced for implementation partners is the ability to design and deploy custom AI agents directly within Business Central using a low-code, natural language interface – reaching general availability in May 2026.
Partners can now build agents tailored to a client’s unique industry processes – whether that is a manufacturer who needs an agent to trigger production orders when stock falls below a reorder point, or a distribution company that wants an agent to reconcile carrier invoices against shipment records automatically.
For more advanced scenarios, Microsoft has also opened full AL (Application Language) extensibility for custom agents, allowing developers to write bespoke automation triggers, connect to external services, and build industry-specific AI experiences within the Business Central environment.
Model Context Protocol (MCP) Support
Wave 1 introduces support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) – a standardised interface that makes it dramatically easier to integrate Business Central with Copilot Studio and third-party AI services. While users will not see MCP in the interface directly, it underpins a new generation of seamless AI integrations that partners can leverage to connect Business Central data and processes with virtually any AI platform.
Agent Visibility and Governance Controls
Microsoft has been deliberate about human oversight. New governance controls in Wave 1 include:
- ‘Created by AI’ and ‘Modified by AI’ indicators on all documents touched by an agent, providing a clear audit trail.
- A real-time activity panel showing exactly what the agent is working on at any given moment.
- An instant Stop control to halt all agent activity – critical during testing or when a process needs to be recalibrated.
These controls mean businesses can adopt agentic AI incrementally, with full confidence that humans remain in control of every consequential decision.
Financial Reporting: Smarter, Faster, More Collaborative
Beyond AI agents, Wave 1 delivers meaningful improvements to financial reporting that address long-standing pain points for finance teams.
Dimension Perspectives: Run Once, Get the Full Picture
Historically, finance teams had to run the same financial report multiple times – once per department or dimension – to get a complete picture. With the new Dimension Perspectives feature, a single report run now produces an automatic full breakout across all selected dimensions. Finance controllers preparing monthly management accounts will save hours each period.
Report Status Governance and Power BI Dashboards
Reports can now be explicitly marked as Draft, Approved, or Retired – introducing formal governance into the reporting process. This is a welcome addition for businesses operating under audit requirements or internal financial controls frameworks.
Wave 1 also delivers updated immersive Power BI dashboards embedded directly within Business Central. These dashboards auto-refresh with live data and are designed to surface actionable insights at the point of decision – without requiring users to leave the application.
Immersive Home Workspace
The redesigned Immersive Home workspace gives each Business Central user a personalised, action-oriented landing page that surfaces the most relevant KPIs, tasks, and AI-generated recommendations for their role – turning the system’s opening screen into a genuine productivity tool rather than a navigation hub.
What This Means for Implementation Partners
Wave 1 2026 is not just a product release – it is a market signal. Clients will start asking about AI agents, and partners who are fluent in designing and deploying them will win the conversations that matter.
Here are the key actions for implementation partners:
- Get hands-on with the Payables Agent and Sales Order Agent in sandbox environments. Understand their default configurations, edge-case behaviours, and approval workflows before presenting them to clients.
- Explore custom agent design capabilities. The low-code interface is accessible; the AL extensibility layer allows differentiation. Begin building industry-specific agent templates now.
- Review your implementation methodology to incorporate an Agent Design phase – covering use-case scoping, governance controls, user training, and post-go-live monitoring of agent activity.
- Familiarise your team with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Partners who understand how to use MCP to connect Business Central with Copilot Studio and external AI services will be able to deliver integrations that competitors cannot easily replicate.
- Stay current with the rollout schedule. Online customers are being upgraded to version 28.0 automatically through April and May 2026. On-premises clients will need their upgrade plan evaluated.
What End Customers Should Prepare For
If you are already running Business Central online, you will receive version 28.0 automatically – which means AI agents and the new financial reporting capabilities will be available to you without an upgrade project. Here is how to make the most of them:
- Identify your highest-volume, most repetitive AP and sales order processes. These are the prime candidates for the Payables Agent and Sales Order Agent. A finance team processing 50+ vendor invoices per week will see immediate, measurable time savings.
- Review your email inbox governance. The Payables Agent works with shared inboxes, so ensure your vendor email workflows are organised and accessible to the system.
- Engage your Business Central partner to discuss custom agent opportunities. The low-code agent design tool means that automation that previously required bespoke development can now be configured in a fraction of the time and cost.
- Train your finance and operations teams on the new governance controls – particularly the AI activity indicators and the Stop control. Adoption is faster when users understand that they remain in charge.
- Explore the new financial reporting capabilities. Dimension Perspectives and report status governance are immediately available and require no technical configuration to use.
Conclusion: The Intelligent ERP Era Begins Now
Business Central 2026 Release Wave 1 is the most consequential update Microsoft has shipped for the platform in years. The shift from AI assistance to agentic AI – where software autonomously executes multi-step business processes – is not a distant promise. It is live, in production, and available to every Business Central Online customer right now.
For implementation partners, the opportunity is to be the guide that helps clients navigate this transition confidently. For end customers, the opportunity is to reclaim the hours lost each week to repetitive data entry, invoice matching, and manual reporting – and redirect that energy toward growth.
The intelligent ERP era has arrived. The organisations that embrace it first will carry a compounding advantage over those that wait.
References & Further Reading
| Resource | Link |
| BC 2026 Wave 1 Overview – Microsoft Learn | learn.microsoft.com/2026wave1/bc |
| Planned Features – Microsoft Learn | learn.microsoft.com – planned-features |
| What’s New in Update 28.0 – Microsoft Learn | learn.microsoft.com – whatsnew-update-28-0 |
| Dynamics 365 Blog – Wave 1 Announcement | microsoft.com – D365 Blog |
💡 Not Sure Where to Start with Agentic AI?
You’re not alone – most organizations are just beginning to explore what this means in practice.
At DynaExperts, we’ve been working with Business Central partners and customers globally to design practical, scalable solutions – from automation use cases to full AppSource-ready applications.
If you’d like a quick, no-pressure discussion on how this applies to your business, we’re happy to help.