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Contact centers are increasingly adopting AI agents as part of their journey to become autonomous. During this time of rapid transformation, the need for a robust system to monitor agent activity is critical. AI agents are capable of resolving customer issues independently across channels, but their autonomy introduces new challenges around compliance, customer trust, and operational transparency.
To address this, we’re excited to announce the agent activity feed, now in preview. This release empowers AI supervisors with the tools they need to monitor agent behavior and intervene when necessary. Additionally, it ensures organizations are adopting AI responsibly and in line with their values and regulatory requirements.
Empower supervisors with agent data
The initial release of the agent activity feed includes:
Inbox-style UX for AI supervisors to view each action an agent performs in a streamlined interface
Activity sharing with up to 250 users to support broad visibility across teams
Monitoring capabilities for:
Case Management Agent
Custom Copilot Studio-based agents
Filtering options by agent name and agent status
A detailed agent run view including:
A summary of steps taken
An activity map
Direct access to associated Dataverse records
Set up the agent activity feed
Viewing the agent activity feed requires the enablement of at least one AI agent in Copilot Service admin center. Users must have a Customer Service Enterprise license and Microsoft Copilot Studio (MCS) message packs available.
Admins can customize which agents to enable. They also need to give supervisors the Editor role in MCS for each agent so they can view its activity in the feed.
Admins can turn on this feature in Copilot Service admin center or Power Platform maker center. In a few short configuration steps, they can enable supervisors to view every agent operation. This streamlined feed gives supervisors the ability to catch issues as they happen and ensure a more effective and productive service organization.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We’re taking a big step forward with major updates to our individual subscription plans, combining the best of AI and productivity at an unbeatable price.
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How the Advanced Tax Calculation Engine Supports Businesses in a Time of Change
Brazil’s sweeping tax reform is reshaping indirect taxation and creating new compliance demands for companies of all sizes. To help organizations prepare, Microsoft is introducing the Brazilian Tax Reform solution in Dynamics 365 Finance—a flexible, transparent, and compliance-ready approach designed to support modern enterprises.
Dynamic Flexibility: Preparing for Reform with Confidence
At the core of the solution is the Advanced Tax Calculation engine, which enables organizations to configure, test, and run both legacy and new tax regimes in parallel during the transition period. This approach supports continuity, allowing businesses to adopt reform at their own pace while minimizing disruption or downtime.
Figure 1: Legacy core tax plus Advanced Tax Calculation engine
Practical Tools for Day-to-Day Compliance
The Brazilian Tax Reform solution provides intuitive tools that simplify setup and ongoing operations. Users can:
Define tax groups and rules
Manage NF-e updates and new CST/cClassTrib fields
Configure electronic invoicing in Electronic Reporting aligned with Brazilian requirements
Clear documentation and guided configuration help minimize errors and improve readiness for future regulatory changes.
Continuous Compliance with Built-In Updates
Tax reform is not a one-time change—it will continue to evolve. Dynamics 365 Finance Globalization delivers updates as requirements shift, reducing the need for long upgrade projects. This continuous compliance model ensures businesses remain current with legislation and better prepared for future adjustments.
Solution Architecture for Agility
The Brazilian Tax Reform solution is built on a modern, extensible data model that adapts as regulations change:
Tax Engines: Legacy and reform engines can operate side by side only during the transition period to support migration.
Entity-Centric Tax Rules: Flexible definitions for tax groups, item groups, and conditional tax logic.
Electronic Invoicing: Updated NF-e and new NFS-e formats are generated through Electronic Reporting. NF-e continues via SEFAZ; NFS-e submission requires customization or third-party integration.
Built-In Compliance: Automated updates, audit trails, and reporting to support transparency and regulatory alignment.
Figure 2: Brazilian Tax Reform Solution Structure
Conclusion: A Practical Path Forward
The Brazilian Tax Reform solution in Dynamics 365 Finance gives organizations the flexibility and tools they need to manage compliance confidently. With dual tax engines available only during the transition period, flexible configuration, and continuous updates, the solution supports a smooth shift to Brazil’s new requirements while maintaining operational continuity.
This solution is designed not only to meet today’s compliance needs but also to help businesses stay adaptable in the face of ongoing regulatory change.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
The record to report (R2R) process is foundational to financial transparency and compliance, encompassing activities such as accounting policy definition, cash management, journal entries, reconciliations, variance analysis, financial close, and reporting. However, these processes are often manual and complex, leading to extended close cycles and data integrity challenges.
To streamline R2R operations, finance teams are increasingly adopting AI-powered agents. These agents accelerate tasks like document summarization across systems—such as audit reports, contracts, and lease agreements—and assist with time-intensive, period-end activities like reconciliations and variance analysis. According to the Microsoft Work Trends Index 2025 report, The Rise of the Frontier Firm, 68% of finance leaders identified automation as a top priority for improving accuracy and speed in the close process, while 72% reported a reduction in manual effort since adopting AI-powered solutions. As a result, finance professionals can shift their focus from routine tasks to more strategic analysis and decision-making, fundamentally transforming the way financial operations are managed and enabling businesses to stay agile in fast-moving markets.
Microsoft has introduced several first-party ERP agents designed specifically to streamline and enhance finance and operations. These agents are seamlessly integrated within the Microsoft ERP ecosystem, automating tasks such as account reconciliation, expense management, and supplier communications. Through a combination of first-party (1P), third-party (3P), and custom-built agents, let’s delve into real-world applications of ERP agents, highlighting how organizations can automate, optimize, and elevate to enter R2R lifecycle.
Agentic ERP Solutions
Drive growth with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that streamlines operations and decisions.
3P agents are partner-owned services that operate within or alongside Microsoft ecosystems such as Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 and often use industry or function specific expertise. Due to their integration with Microsoft platforms and access to data across the organization, these agents are subject to additional compliance and governance requirements, including Microsoft 365 Certification, data protection policies, and administrative controls.
Custom agents can be built using Microsoft Copilot Studio or Azure AI, tailored to specific business or user needs. Using natural language and knowledge sources, customers can quickly build agents that offer deep orchestration, multi-agent coordination, and integration with external systems like SAP, Oracle, or proprietary ERPs.
Each type plays a unique role in supporting R2R, and together they form a powerful toolkit for finance transformation.
Automating reconciliation with 1P agents
One of the most time-consuming tasks in R2R is reconciliation—whether it’s matching transactions between subledgers and general ledgers or reconciling bank statements and intercompany balances. The Financial Reconciliation Agent, a 1P solution, has already demonstrated its value in reducing manual effort and improving auditability.
Users can initiate reconciliation directly from Excel, define matching logic, apply tolerances, and generate detailed reports. Templates allow for repeatable automation, and agents can be triggered by events like file uploads or scheduled runs. Organizations like U.S. AutoForce have reported time savings of up to 80% using these agents.
Driving insight with the finance solution in Microsoft 365 Copilot
Variance analysis is critical for understanding deviations between actuals and forecasts. The variance analysis capabilities, available in Microsoft 365 Copilot, enables finance teams to perform multi-dimensional analysis across products, regions, and time periods. It supports both natural language queries and structured prompts and can generate executive summaries and actionable insights.
These role-based solutions are particularly useful during month-end close, budgeting cycles, and performance reviews. By automating variance detection and explanation, agents can free analysts to focus on strategic decision-making.
Extending capabilities with 3P agents
Microsoft is accelerating the development of out-of-the-box finance agents by collaborating with our partner ecosystem to deliver finance-specific solutions through the AppSource framework. These agents are purpose-built in response to direct customer feedback, ensuring they address real-world financial challenges with precision and relevance.
Among the standout examples is the Lease Agent developed by Crowe, which automates lease data extraction and validation, and seamlessly integrates with Dynamics 365 Finance to streamline the lease accounting processes. Another impactful solution is the PayFlow Agent by HSO, designed to eliminate the repetitive task of responding to vendor payment inquiries. Operating behind the scenes, it analyzes incoming emails, retrieves real-time data from Dynamics 365 Finance, and delivers accurate responses within seconds.
These are just two of many 3P agents currently in development, with more expected to launch in the coming months.
Extending capabilities with custom agents
While 1P and 3P agents offer robust out-of-the-box functionality, many organizations require deeper customization. Enter custom agents, built in Microsoft Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry. These agents can:
Perform write-back operations (such as creating journal entries in ERP.)
Orchestrate multi-step workflows across departments.
Comply with enterprise-grade security and governance standards.
Examples include agents that monitor service disruptions, generate alerts, and initiate corrective actions; or agents that automate work item creation in DevOps based on finance triggers.
Custom agents are ideal for complex workflow automation, advanced need, or when integrating with legacy systems or handling complex business logic.
Real-world impact across the R2R lifecycle
Let’s map agent capabilities to key R2R stages:
R2R stage
AI type
Agent functionality
Journal entry
Custom agent
Create entries based on triggers or reconciled data.
Reconciliation
1P agent
Automate ledger matching, generate reports, and notify users.
Variance analysis
1P Copilot
Analyze deviations, generate summaries, and suggest corrective actions.
Close management across multiple systems
Custom agent
Coordinate tasks, validate data, and escalate issues.
Financial reporting
1P or custom agent
Aggregate data, apply formatting, and distribute reports.
Audit andcompliance
1P or custom agent
Preserve original data, ensure traceability, and support audit workflows.
This alignment shows how agents can support both tactical execution and strategic oversight.
Unlock your financial potential with agents
The convergence of 1P, 3P, and custom agents marks a new era for finance operations. By automating routine tasks, surfacing insights, and enabling intelligent workflows, agents empower finance teams to focus on what matters most—strategic decision-making and value creation.
As organizations embrace AI-first transformation, the R2R process stands to benefit immensely from agentic innovation. Whether you’re just starting or scaling your deployment, now is the time to explore how agents can reshape your finance function.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
A new breed of industry-leading company is taking shape — Frontier Firms. These organizations blend human ambition with AI-powered technology to reshape how innovation is scaled, work is orchestrated and value is created. They’re accelerating AI transformation to enrich employee experiences, reinvent customer engagement, reshape business processes and unlock creativity and innovation.
To empower customers in becoming Frontier, we’re excited to announce the launch of the reimagined Microsoft Marketplace, your trusted source for cloud solutions, AI apps and agents. This further realizes Marketplace as an extension of the Microsoft Cloud, where we collaborate with our partner ecosystem to bring their innovations to our customers globally. By offering a comprehensive catalog across cloud solutions and industries, Microsoft Marketplace accelerates the path to becoming a Frontier Firm. With today’s announcement, we are excited to share:
The new Microsoft Marketplace, a single destination to find, try, buy and deploy cloud solutions, AI apps and agents. Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource are now unified to simplify cloud and AI management. Available today in the US and coming soon to customers worldwide.
Tens of thousands of cloud and industry solutions in the Marketplace catalog across a breadth of categories ranging from data and analytics to productivity and collaboration, in addition to industry-specific offerings.
Over 3,000 AI apps and agents are newly available directly on Marketplace and in Microsoft products — from Azure AI Foundry to Microsoft 365 Copilot — with rapid provisioning within your Microsoft environment through industry standards like Model Context Protocol (MCP).
Marketplace integrations with Microsoft’s channel ecosystem, empowering you to buy where and how you want — whether from your cloud service provider (CSP) or relying on a trusted partner to procure cloud and AI solutions on your behalf.
Microsoft Marketplace gives you access to thousands of AI apps and agents from our rich partner ecosystem designed to automate tasks, accelerate decision-making and unlock value across your business. With a new AI Apps and Agents category, you can easily and confidently find AI solutions that integrate with your organization’s existing Microsoft products.
“With Microsoft Marketplace, we reduced configuration time of AI apps from nearly 20 minutes to just 1 minute per instance. That efficiency boost has translated into increased productivity and lower operating costs. Marketplace is a strategic channel for Siemens, where we’ve seen an 8X increase in customer adoption. It’s a powerful platform for scaling both sides of our business.”
— Jeff Zobrist, VP Global Partner Ecosystem and Go To Market | Siemens Digital Industries Software
Special thanks to these partners who are launching new AI offerings in Microsoft Marketplace today:
Comprehensive catalog across cloud solutions and industries
Microsoft Marketplace offers solutions across dozens of categories ranging from data and analytics to productivity and collaboration, in addition to industry-specific offerings. Microsoft Marketplace is a seamless extension of the Microsoft Cloud, uniting solutions integrated with Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Security and more.
“The Microsoft Marketplace, in particular, helps us balance innovation with confidence by giving us access to trusted solutions that integrate seamlessly with our Azure environment — ultimately enabling us to move faster while staying true to our Five Principles.”
— Matthew Hillegas, Commercial Director – Infrastructure & Information Security | Mars Inc.
For organizations with a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment, 100% of your purchase for any of the thousands of Azure benefit eligible solutions available on Marketplace continue to count toward your commitment. This helps you spend smarter to maximize your cloud and AI investments.
Integrated experience from discovery to deployment
Contextually relevant cloud solutions, AI apps and agents built by our partners are also available directly within Microsoft products — providing users, developers and IT practitioners with approved solutions in the flow of work. For example, Agent Store includes Copilot agents within the Microsoft 365 Copilot experience. The same applies for apps in Microsoft Teams, models and tools in Azure AI Foundry and future experiences including MCP servers.
By integrating offerings from Marketplace directly into the Microsoft Cloud, IT is equipped with management and control tools that enable both innovation and governance. When you acquire a Copilot agent or an app running on Azure from Microsoft Marketplace, it’s provisioned and distributed to team members aligned to your security and governance standards.
For our partners, Microsoft Marketplace sits at the center of how we work together. We’re continuously expanding its capabilities to help our partners drive growth — whether that means scaling through digital sales, deepening channel partnerships or landing transformative deals.
We’ve invested in multiparty private offers, CSP integration and CSP private offers to connect software development companies and channel partners on Marketplace, creating more complete solutions to address customers’ needs. Today, we’re excited to share that valued partners including Arrow, Crayon, Ingram Micro, Pax8 and TD SYNNEX are integrating Microsoft Marketplace into their marketplaces, further extending customer reach.
Additionally, a new Marketplace capability called resale enabled offers is now in private preview. This empowers software companies to authorize their channel partners to sell on their behalf through private offers — unlocking new routes to market.
“We’re incredibly excited about the path forward with Microsoft. This integration with the Marketplace catalog is just the beginning — we see endless potential to co-innovate and help customers navigate their AI-first transformation with confidence.”
— Melissa Mulholland, Co-CEO | SoftwareOne and Crayon
Nicole Dezen, Chief Partner Officer and Corporate Vice President, Global Channel Partner Sales at Microsoft, shares more details about the partner opportunity with Microsoft Marketplace in her blog.
Becoming Frontier with Microsoft Marketplace
Whether you’re seeking to accelerate innovation, empower your teams with AI or unlock new value through trusted partners, Microsoft Marketplace brings together the solutions, expertise and ecosystem to meet your business needs. Explore the new Microsoft Marketplace.Thousands of solutions. Millions of customers. One Marketplace.
Alysa Taylor is the Chief Marketing Officer for Commercial Cloud and AI at Microsoft, leading teams that enable digital and AI transformation for organizations of all sizes across the globe. She is at the forefront of helping organizations around the world harness digital and AI innovation to transform how they operate and grow.
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