2026 Release Wave 1: What CRM Admins Actually Need to Review

Twice a year, Microsoft publishes a long list of new and planned features across Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. If you are a CRM admin, this can feel like a lot to sort through.

There are updates for Sales, Service (which covers Customer Service, Contact Center, and Field Service), Customer Insights (Journeys and Data), Copilot, Dataverse, Power Automate, and more. Some of those updates may matter a lot to your organization. Others may not apply to you at all.

So how do you review a release wave without getting buried in the details?

The goal is not to know every upcoming feature. The goal is to understand what might affect your users, what needs to be tested, and what needs action before it causes confusion in production.

Here is a practical checklist to help CRM admins prepare for 2026 Release Wave 1.

Start With What You Use

Before reading through every release note, look at your environment and create an inventory of which products, apps, and processes your organization uses today. Make a simple list of the apps (Sales, Service, Customer Insights), automations (do you have any Power Automate flows?), and Copilot/Agent/AI features. Don’t forget to include Dataverse and Power Apps (especially model-driven apps) — more on that later.

Sort Features Into Three Buckets

Once you have your list, focus on the parts of the release wave that apply to your environment. You can sort items into three simple buckets: monitor, test, and act.

• Monitor: These are features that are interesting but do not require action right now. Some examples include:
  • Preview features
  • Roadmap items to revisit later
• Test: These are changes that could affect your current users, automations, reports, or customizations. Some examples include:
  • User interface changes
  • Form or grid behavior changes
  • Sales process updates
  • Case management changes
  • Power Automate changes
  • Copilot features that summarize or suggest CRM data
• Act: These are items that require admin work, communication, training, or governance decisions. Some examples are:
  • Features that need to be enabled
  • Features that affect users automatically
  • Deprecated functionality
  • Changes related to security or data access
  • New AI features that require user guidance

This simple sorting exercise helps separate what is interesting from what is actually actionable.

Treat Copilot Like a Process Change

Copilot and AI features should not be treated like simple buttons you turn on. They depend on your CRM data (this is absolutely key for AI to work as you expect it to!), your security model, your knowledge articles (for Service) and your business processes.

Before enabling or encouraging new AI features, ask:

• What data does this feature use?
• Who can access it?
• What records can it summarize?
• Is the output internal, customer-facing, or both?
• Do users know they still need to review the output?
• Are our knowledge articles accurate and current?
• Are security roles appropriate?

Copilot can help users move faster, but it does not fix messy CRM data or unclear processes. That is not a reason to avoid Copilot. It is a reason to prepare for it properly.

Don’t Forget Power Platform Dependencies

Most likely, your Dynamics 365 CE/CRM system doesn’t live in a silo. You likely have some combination of Power Automate flows, custom apps, Power Pages, and integrations that support key CRM processes.

Review the release notes for anything that may affect Dataverse, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Pages, Copilot Studio, and any other Power Platform components your environment uses.

Test the Processes Users Rely On

Also, test the core processes your users rely on every day. For Sales, that may mean creating and qualifying a lead, updating an opportunity, and reviewing pipeline views. For Service, that may mean creating a case, routing it, applying an SLA, searching knowledge articles, and resolving the case. Be sure to test with real user roles, not just System Administrator.

Communicate Only What Users Need to Know

Users do not need the full Microsoft release plan; they only care about what will affect them. This is where a good change management plan comes into play! For each user-facing change, communicate:

• What is changing
• Who is affected
• When it is changing
• What users need to do differently
• Where to report issues

Some changes may not need communication at all. Some may only need a short note. Others may require targeted training. The goal is to prevent confusion, not overwhelm users with release notes.

Quick CRM Admin Checklist

Here is the short version:

• Identify which Dynamics 365 and Power Platform products you use
• Review only the release areas that apply to your environment
• Sort features into Monitor, Test, and Act
• Check whether features are automatic or admin-enabled
• Treat Copilot and AI features as process changes
• Test critical business processes with real user roles
• Watch for deprecated functionality
• Review Power Platform dependencies like Power Automate, Power Apps and Dataverse
• Communicate user-facing changes clearly

Final Thoughts

Release waves do not have to be overwhelming. You do not need to become an expert on every new feature. You just need to know which changes matter to your environment, your users, and your business processes.

For 2026 Release Wave 1, instead of asking, “What’s new?”, ask, “What do we need to be ready for?”

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