Last week, hundreds of feature updates and capabilities were released across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. This release, one of the biggest to date, showcased Microsoft’s investment in accelerating business transformations. We have highlighted top features from four key areas in this round of updates below.
1. AI = Business Results
Microsoft has continued to invest in AI capabilities with the goal of turning reactive organizations into proactive ones. With the new wave of updates, people will be able to take informed actions and deliver personalized experiences, powered by an unprecedented level of advanced intelligence. One specific product, Dynamics 365 Product Insights, launched a preview that is available to the public. Partners can transform the way they develop, sell, and support their products and services with real-time insights that help them better understand their customer’s needs. Product Insights can take data from products like machines and give users an idea of how to increase performance, as well as reliability. Customer Insights has also been updated. Users can generate insights into complex B2B journeys to better serve leads and accounts. Lastly, Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service, which is still in preview, has new capabilities to deploy AI-powered chat bots to focus on solving difficult problems or customers.
2. Retail Reinvented
The second area that has gained new capabilities is retail. Dynamics 365 Commerce is an omnichannel solution for e-commerce companies that unifies back office, in-store, and call center experiences into a seamless operation. The focus for Release Wave 2 was to deliver insights into the retail space through data from video cameras, and IoT sensors. With Dynamics 365 Connected Store, retailers are able to be proactive in every aspect of business from alerting staff to restocking shelves. They can now deliver personalized shopping experiences that will have consumers coming back for more.
3. Banking Secured
Microsoft recently announced that they have released several enhancements to strengthen intelligent banking with Artificial Intelligence. Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection is a solution that decreases fraud costs and increases acceptance rates for customer payment transactions. Microsoft Banking Accelerator was also enhanced so that financial organizations can build intelligent, data-driven solutions across retail and commercial lines of business.
4. An Empowering Platform
Nothing compares to the Power Platform. This release wave updated PowerApps, Microsoft Flow, and Power BI. Portals, created within PowerApps, allows Microsoft partners to engage with customers, build responsive websites, and integrate all data. Anyone can build a low-code web portal that surfaces data stored in Common Data Service to employees and even users outside of their organization. For Microsoft Flow, makers will find new features that improve business process capabilities and offline work. Administrators benefit from tooling, such as the PowerShell Command lets (cmdlets) and the new Power Platform Admin Center. The AI Builder is available in PowerApps and Microsoft Flow which allows users to build apps and workflows that leverage AI models based on a low code platform. Power BI focused on intuitive experiences, a unified BI platform, big data analytics, and pervasive artificial intelligence.
After reviewing the major updates in each key area, it is apparent that a lot of thought was put into how Artificial Intelligence can change each platform for the better. Microsoft is hosting a Virtual Launch Event on October 10th that will be available on-demand. This event will provide details about new and exciting innovations that will be coming to the market. The Business Applications Product Updates Page always has key updates, timelines, and guides for the Microsoft partner community.
