2026 Wave 1 Release for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement: A Closer Look at What’s New
Every Dynamics 365 release cycle brings innovation. But... the 2026 Wave 1 release for Customer Engagement feels particularly intentional. The common thread across every module? AI is no longer on the sidelines. It’s embedded directly into how your teams work and operate every single day.
From smarter selling to more trustworthy marketing, proactive service, and streamlined field operations, Microsoft is doubling down on real, usable enhancements that will allow your team to automate time-consuming and costly processes and focus on work that matters.
Watch the video break down here:
Let’s break down what’s new across the four core workloads in the 2026 Wave 1 release and what they mean for your business.
Dynamics 365 Sales
For users working with D365 Sales, this release is about speeding up workflows, increasing access to data and intelligence, and removing friction and roadblocks from day-to-day workflows.
Smarter Views with Natural Language (Smart Grid)
One of the standout updates is the introduction of a Copilot-powered smart grid. Traditionally, filtering records in Sales required building custom views or applying structured filters. With this feature, you can simply describe what you want using natural language.
For example, you could ask for:
- “Leads created in the last 7 days”
- “Warm leads in California”
- “Opportunities closing this quarter above $50K”
Copilot will interpret your request and dynamically build the filtered view for you. This eliminates time spent configuring filters, makes CRM more accessible to non-technical users, and speeds up decision-making in real time.
Instant Visualizations with Copilot
Sales users can now generate charts directly from any view without dashboards or manual configurations. With a single click, Copilot can create a visualization from your data. You can then regenerate or refine it instantly to fit your personal needs and save it as a personal chart for future use when you find something that works.
This is a subtle change that brings insights to the forefront, with Copilot able to generate them on demand.
Sales Hub Dialer: Keeping Everything in One Place
Microsoft is also expanding telephony capabilities with the Sales Hub Dialer, powered by Azure Communication Services. Key updates to this area include:
- One-click inbound and outbound calling
- Call transcription and recording
- Real-time sentiment analysis
- Note-taking during calls
- Post-call data access and review
The real benefit here is reducing “swivel chair” activity. This means your reps no longer need to bounce between systems to communicate and log activity and can access everything they need from a single, unified view.
The Rise of AI Sales Agents
This is where things get really interesting, as Microsoft is introducing four Copilot agents that are purpose-built and designed to support the entire sales lifecycle. Let’s look at them in more detail:
1. Sales Qualification Agent
- Evaluates incoming leads
- Classifies them (hot, warm, cold)
- Recommends next steps
- Drafts outreach emails
2. Sales Opportunity Agent
- Monitors opportunities
- Identifies risks
- Suggests actions to move deals forward
3. Sales Close Agent
- Helps manage deal progression
- Recommends products and timelines
- Surfaces risks and summarizes recent activity
- Nudges follow-ups and engagement
4. Sales Research Agent (Interactive)
- Acts like a conversational AI assistant
- Answers business questions using CRM data
- Generates KPIs, insights, and visualizations
- Supports ongoing “sessions” for deeper analysis
Personalization and Continuous Improvement
What makes these agents especially valuable is how configurable they are:
- Define tone and style for AI-generated emails
- Tailor what “good leads” look like
- Align recommendations with your sales strategy
These agents aren’t just generic AI—they’re customizable digital teammates.
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys
Formerly known as marketing, Customer Insights - Journeys is seeing updates focused on a critical theme: trust and control.
Branded Content Links (Vanity Domains)
One of the most requested features is finally here. With branded content links, your organization can now:
- Use their own domain for marketing links
- Replace long, generic tracking URLs
- Maintain brand consistency across emails, forms, and event pages
This is huge for marketers, as it builds trust with recipients, improves click-through rates, and reduces potential “spammy” appearances of marketing links.
Message Expiration for Campaign Accuracy
Marketing teams can now set expiration dates on messages within journeys. Examples of this include promotions with an expiration date, time-sensitive offers, and event-based communications. Once expired, those messages won’t be sent—ensuring customers don’t receive outdated content.
This helps maintain messaging accuracy, brand credibility, and provides a better customer experience.
Expanded Journey Orchestration Capabilities
Journey creation is also becoming more powerful and flexible with several new capabilities:
- Creating leads and opportunities directly within journeys
- Generating activities automatically
- Updating record fields dynamically
This transforms journeys from simple campaign flows into true automation engines that drive pipeline creation, trigger downstream processes, and keep CRM data up to date in real time.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Customer Service in this release is all about proactivity, intelligence, and agent empowerment. Essentially, these updates
Real-Time Customer Sentiment on Cases
Agents can now see customer sentiment directly on the case form, based on recent interactions such as email, chat, or voice. The system will indicate whether a customer is feeling Positive, Neutral, or Negative.
This gives agents immediate context before engaging, helping them:
- Adjust tone and approach when interacting with a customer
- Prioritize escalations for customers who are feeling Negative
- Improve customer outcomes with more tailored responses and rapid escalations
AI-Driven Forecasting
Forecasting capabilities are getting a major upgrade with AI and Copilot. With these new abilities, customer service leaders can now:
- Predict case volumes more accurately
- Anticipate staffing needs
- Optimize resource allocation
These benefits shift forecasting from reactive to proactive, allowing teams to stay ahead of demand and prepare for high-volume times by making sure the right responses and resources are in place.
Copilot Agents Take Center Stage
Similar to Sales, Customer Service is seeing the largest investment in AI agents in this release, with four new agents introduced:
1. Customer Intent Agent
- Determines why a customer is reaching out
- Analyzes context, sentiment, and history
- Routes requests appropriately
2. Knowledge Management Agent
- Surfaces relevant knowledge articles in real time
- Suggests solutions during live interactions
- Helps create new knowledge content post-case
3. Case Management Agent
- Assists in creating and managing cases
- Suggests when a case is needed
- Tracks and guides resolution workflows
4. Quality Evaluation Agent
- Reviews customer interactions
- Assesses tone, compliance, and effectiveness
- Provides coaching insights for managers
These agents are prebuilt, purpose-driven, and highly configurable. They don’t replace your service team, but they will augment their abilities in real time, helping them resolve issues faster and more effectively.
Dynamics 365 Field Service
Field Service updates focus on efficiency in the field and proactivity and flexibility in scheduling, ensuring your team stays on track to meet customer needs efficiently and on time.
Faster, Simpler Mobile Experience
For technicians in the field, the ability to simply pull out their phone and access everything they need from the field is huge. In this release, usability improvements will make a huge difference. Key enhancements include:
- Up to 25% faster form load times on Android devices
- Simplified lookup fields for smaller screens
- Streamlined note-taking experience
These changes reduce friction for technicians who rely on mobile devices all day.
Enhanced Scheduling for Dispatchers
On the other side of the Field Service coin are dispatchers and schedulers. In this release, they will also see several powerful new capabilities, including:
- Move multiple bookings at once
- Reschedule work orders in bulk
- Assign multiple bookings to a single resource simultaneously
This is a major improvement for organizations managing complex schedules, increasing proactivity in ensuring the right resources are deployed to the right jobs.
Native Outlook and Teams Calendar Integration
In the field, technicians can now view work orders, bookings, and schedules directly in Outlook or Teams calendars without a custom setup. This provides better visibility into daily schedules, easier planning and coordination, and reduced reliance on custom workflows.
Looking Ahead: Scheduling Operations Agent
While not fully available yet (planned for 2027), Microsoft teased a Scheduling Operations Agent with this release. This AI-powered agent will:
- Assist with scheduling decisions
- Automatically adjust bookings
- Reduce manual intervention for dispatchers
Even though it’s not generally available yet, it signals where Field Service is heading: fully AI-assisted scheduling.
Final Thoughts on AI in the 2026 Wave 1 Release
Across Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, and Field Service, one thing is clear: AI is no longer just a feature—it’s becoming the foundation of how work gets done in Dynamics 365.
This release delivers:
- Real-time insights without manual effort
- Automation that actually reduces workload
- Better alignment between teams and systems
- Improved customer experiences at every touchpoint
But here’s the reality: features alone don’t drive value, execution does. That requires the right partner.
Ready to Turn These Updates into Real Results?
At Stoneridge Software, we help organizations go beyond “turning features on” to actually:
- Align Dynamics 365 with your business processes
- Configure AI and Copilot tools for real-world impact
- Optimize performance across CRM, ERP, and operations
- Ensure your team is fully equipped to take advantage of every update
If you’re ready to take full advantage of the 2026 Wave 1 release and transform how your teams sell, market, and serve, reach out to us today!
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