AI agent in Business Central: Connecting the gap through automation

We are witnessing a transformative shift in the IT landscape, as artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly integrates into every industry. AI is set to become central to the technological strategies of numerous businesses.

The evolution of AI has progressed through three pivotal phases:

Understanding AI agents

AI agents are sophisticated systems designed to autonomously execute specific tasks by perceiving their environment, processing data, and executing actions towards predefined goals. Unlike traditional software that depends on pre-set commands, AI agents learn, adapt, and improve continuously through feedback loops.

In Business Central, AI agents significantly boost productivity by automating repetitive tasks, reducing operational costs by streamlining processes, and enhancing customer experiences through personalized and intelligent interactions. These agents follow user-defined instructions and settings using artificial intelligence to identify optimal to assigned tasks.

AI agent in Business Central – Standard functionality by Microsoft

Microsoft continues to invest heavily in AI to drive productivity and operational efficiency across its suite of business applications. Within Dynamics 365 Business Central. AI agents are helping transform everyday business processes—automating routine tasks and enabling teams to focus on more strategic initiatives.

One notable example is the Sales Order Agent, recently introduced by Microsoft. Currently available in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States, this integrated AI agent is designed to streamline and simplify sales order management by automating tasks like order processing and tracking.

Key capabilities:

These capabilities reduce administrative overhead and enhance customer satisfaction by ensuring timely, accurate, and efficient order handling.

Upcoming agent features in Business Central planned by Microsoft

Microsoft continues to evolve and expand its AI capabilities within Business Central, with a strong emphasis on automating finance and operations. Among many upcoming features, noteworthy ones include:

• Payable Agent: This agent will streamline the accounts payable process by automating repetitive and time-intensive accounts payables (AP) and accountant tasks, saving time and reducing errors. The agent extracts vendor invoice attachments from sources like email and SharePoint, then generates purchase invoice documents in Business Central for review. Leveraging the purchase history and company accounting policies, the agent intelligently registers purchase invoices-saving time and reducing manual errors.
• Enhanced Sales Order Agent features: Microsoft is expanding the functionality of the Sales Order Agent with advanced capabilities to minimize manual intervention, enhance accuracy, and gain deeper insights into order processing and fulfillment.

Custom AI agents in Business Central – Designed for your business

While Microsoft is expanding its library of AI agents, businesses often need solutions tailored to their specific workflows, industry regulations and strategic goals. A Custom AI Agent for Business Central is a purpose-built intelligent system designed to align with the unique needs and processes of a business and offer tailored solutions. Be it automating niche workflows, integrating with specialized data sources, or delivering personalized recommendations, these agents help:

• Gain a competitive advantage
• Achieve high process efficiency and accuracy,
• Improve decision-making
• Scalability and
• Ultimately drive growth.
  
  

There is different platform available for developing AI Agent

With the right platform, businesses can create AI agents that are not just reactive but proactive—driving smarter operations and delivering measurable business value.

This blog highlights how Copilot Studio, a low-code platform, simplifies the creation of custom AI agents tailored to your business needs

CoPilot Studio —part of the Microsoft Power Platform—is a powerful, low-code tool designed to help users create and customize AI copilots. It allows users to build intelligent, context-aware, and deeply connected AI assistants for various business applications.

Nagarro’s custom AI Agent solutions: Built for real business impact

At Nagarro, we’re creating custom AI agent solutions to address the unique needs of our clients. They serve as intelligent digital assistants embedded into everyday tools. Below are some illustrative examples:

• FinVendor agent as procurement & finance assistant

Deployed with Microsoft Teams, this virtual assistant automates the generation of financial reports, such as Balance Sheets, Income Statements, and Trial Balances, as well as purchasing information based on user-defined parameters. Beyond reporting, the agent can also share these reports with the relevant stakeholders, enabling faster and more informed decision-making across departments.

Capabilities:

Features:

• OrderNotify agent as sales notification assistant

Integrated with Microsoft Teams, this virtual assistant is designed to help you send notifications on the sales documents via Teams, Outlook, or WhatsApp (Using Twilio as a third-party service).

Capabilities:

Features:

Why custom AI agents matter: Key advantages explained

Security and compliance of custom AI agents – A core pillar of Business Central AI solutions

Security and compliance are essential for Business Central AI solutions. Microsoft Copilot Studio is built on Microsoft’s trusted cloud infrastructure, ensuring that your custom AI agents operate within a secure, compliant, and enterprise-ready environment.

🔐 Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) Authentication
Copilot Studio integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Entra ID, providing enterprise-grade identity and access management. This ensures that Custom AI agents are accessed only by authenticated users, following strict organizational policies around identity verification and access control.

🛂 Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Organizations can define granular permissions for users and teams with RBAC. This restricts who can build, edit, deploy, or manage Custom AI agents, thereby you reduce the risk of unauthorized access or unintended modifications.

📄 Data Privacy & Regulatory Compliance
Custom AI agents developed in Copilot Studio operate within the secure compliance boundaries of Microsoft 365. This ensures adherence to global and industry-specific data protection regulations, including GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), and SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2).

📊 Audit Logging & Real-Time Monitoring
Administrators are equipped with comprehensive audit logs and monitoring tools that track AI agent activity across environments. These features enhance visibility, support incident response efforts, and help ensure that automated workflows remain secure, compliant, and accountable.

Custom AI Agents aren’t free — Here’s what to expect

Microsoft bills based on message usage, where each message represents a single interaction between a user and a Copilot agent. Each interaction counts as one unit of consumption. The number of messages used can vary depending on the type of agent, the knowledge sources it connects to, and the complexity of the response or action it performs.

Conclusion

In Business Central, AI agents are intelligent systems that automate routine tasks, deliver real-time insights, and support smarter decision-making. They boost user productivity and operational efficiency by optimizing processes across key business areas.

Custom AI agents take this capability even further—enabling businesses to customize the AI agent to their unique workflows and business objectives. Using low-code platforms like CoPilot Studio, businesses can build agents that seamlessly integrate with their existing systems and are purpose-built to drive unique strategic outcomes. As digital transformation accelerates, both agents and custom AI agents in Business Central are becoming catalysts for innovation, agility, and a sustained competitive advantage.