Directions NA Day 1 Wrap-Up: Growth to Business Central Ecosystem, Microsoft Copilot Updates

Microsoft MVP and Chief Content Officer Aaron Back is on location at Directions NA, taking place in Orlando, Florida, from April 16-19.

In this video, Aaron gives viewers an overview of Day 1, where he heard from Microsoft executives about the growth of the Business Central ecosystem, learned about the new features coming to Business Central, and received updates about Microsoft Copilot.

Highlights

00:18 — Quite the crowd showed up for Directions NA 2023 — Aaron reports that there are about 1,100 registrants this year and about 200 of them are new attendees. During the general session, there were many showcases from independent software partners (ISPs), before Microsoft took the stage.

00:40 — As Microsoft executives were speaking, Aaron notes that a huge focus of the discussion was on the growth of the Business Central ecosystem. Mike Morton, General Manager, Dynamics 365 Business Central, explained that there was a 105% growth year over year of customers with more than 100 paid users.

01:00 — Something else that was a focus was the focus on artificial intelligence (AI), and specifically, Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft executives Jannik Bausager, Principal Group Program Manager, Microsoft, and Horina Serbanescu, Director of Business Central Clients Engineering, Microsoft, showcased a product demo on Business Central which highlighted the seamless integration between Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and AI-powered capabilities stemming from Copilot.

01:31 — Aaron shares a few key features that stuck out to him:

• Analysis mode in Business Central, allowing users build pivots, tables, styles, and lists
• Using mixed reality, through Power Apps, to meet customer demands
• The use of Copilot to generate product details when new sellable products are added to Business Central

“This is just a taste of the excitment around Business Central, Power Platform, and Dynamics 365 all working together,” he says.

03:10 — Mike Morton called out that some of the new Business Central features are a result of speaking directly with Dynamics GP users. Users are feeling the “pressure” to migrate from GP and towards the cloud, but Aaron assures that the Dynamics GP community will always have a home at Dynamics Communities. If you are feeling that pressure, know that there is still a network of GP users that are still flourishing around the world, and you can find what you need here on the Dynamics Communities site.

Stay tuned for more on location coverage while Aaron is attending Directions NA this week!