In today’s voice-first world, it’s not enough for systems to simply hear what users say. They need to understand it with precision.  In high-stakes environments like healthcare, finance, or enterprise IT, voice interfaces must balance natural conversation with strict control over vocabulary and intent. Many organizations rely on voice AI agents to collect critical information. This can include account numbers, credit card numbers, tracking codes, prescription identifiers, and more! Accuracy isn’t optional in these scenarios. Even a single misrecognized digit can derail a customer experience. Traditional speech recognition systems often struggle with these inputs, leading to frustration and costly errors. 

That’s why we’re introducing Constrained Speech Recognition, a new capability in Dynamics 365 Contact Center designed to deliver highly accurate recognition for structured voice inputs. Unlike open-ended speech recognition, which tries to interpret anything a user might say, constrained systems use grammars. Grammars are structured rules that define exactly what the system should recognize, making them ideal for structured workflows and regulated domains. These rules typically use the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (“SRGS”) format, an industry standard used by enterprises worldwide, and can include logic for validation, positional constraints, and even checksum verification.

Grammars are ideal for: 

• Alphanumeric strings like confirmation codes, member IDs, Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN), and package tracking numbers 

• Constrained lists such as department names or product SKUs 

Subsequently, this approach ensures: 

• High containment, in which only expected inputs are recognized 

• Improved accuracy, especially in noisy environments

• Reduced error rates compared to traditional speech recognition systems 

As voice systems continue to evolve into agentic architectures with non-deterministic conversations, constraint will play a critical role in ensuring specific outputs remain accurate, secure, and user-friendly. If your business depends on precise voice input, Constrained Speech Recognition is your next step forward. It’s not just about hearing, it’s about understanding—reliably and securely.

Learn more 

Watch a quick video introduction.

To learn more about this modality of speech recognition, read the documentation: Use external speech grammars | Microsoft Learn

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We’re thrilled to announce today the general availability of Teams Phone extensibility for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center. This milestone marks the next chapter in our commitment to modernizing customer engagements and empowering organizations to deliver exceptional experiences at scale. 

The lines separating the unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS) markets are vanishing fast. As organizations accelerate their shift to the cloud, the convergence of these platforms is essential for modern service delivery. With Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Teams Phone extensibility, organizations can lead this transformation. When they harness the power of AI, automation, and unified data, they deliver faster, smarter, and more resilient customer service. 

“By consolidating our telephony on one platform with Teams Phone and Dynamics 365 Contact Center, we’re reducing complexity and improving operational efficiency. For example, our team is able to access customer data directly from Dynamics 365 without the need for additional integrations, and we’re able to simplify ongoing administration by standardizing on one phone system—all while taking advantage of Teams Phone enterprise features and its familiar management tools.” — Christopher Ehlo, Tech Lead, Sveriges Lärare 

Unified, seamless contact centers

Teams Phone extensibility for Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a cloud-native integration. It converges the front and back offices by bringing telephony into the heart of the contact center. In addition to unifying operations, it also simplifies telephony management, strengthens collaboration, and accelerates innovation. Now organizations can configure Teams Calling Plans, Direct Routing, or Operator Connect as their voice foundation. And they can do it within a single, unified CCaaS + UCaaS solution. This reduces silos and complexity, while extending the power of Microsoft’s collaboration and AI tools to every customer interaction. 

With Teams Phone extensibility for Dynamics 365 Contact Center organizations can: 

• Enable telephony for Dynamics 365 Contact Center users by utilizing existing Teams Phone licenses. 

• Take advantage of the extensive geographic reach of Teams Phone, with calling plans accessible in 36 countries, Operator Connect available in 96 countries, and Direct Routing offered worldwide. 

• Utilize the familiar Teams management interface and access additional Teams Phone features. 

According to a commissioned Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting¹, organizations using Teams Phone extensibility with Dynamics 365 Contact Center could see projected ROI and benefits PV as high as 345% and $3.5M respectively by year 3. Download the full report to learn more.  

¹Projected benefits for a composite customer. New Technology: The Projected Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center with Teams Phone extensibility, Forrester Consulting, Casey Sirotnak, Jonathan Lipsitz, August 2025 

Learn more

To get started, read the documentation: Configure Teams Phone in voice channel | Microsoft Learn 

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In modern contact centers, operational efficiency hinges on how quickly service representatives can transition between customer interactions. One often overlooked but critical phase is the wrap-up period—when service representatives finalize notes, update records, and prepare for the next engagement. Until now, wrap-up timers in Dynamics 365 Contact Center were limited to minute-level granularity. However, administrators were looking for more granular control to have a shorter wrap-up period after conversations. 

Administrators can now configure wrap-up timers in seconds. This means they have precise control over service representative availability. Additionally, they can streamline post-call workflows. 

Why it matters 

Contact centers vary widely in how much time service representatives need to wrap up after a conversation. For some, a full minute is excessive, leading to unnecessary idle time and reduced throughput. For others, shorter wrap-up periods can help meet aggressive service-level agreements (SLAs) and optimize resource utilization. 

Dynamics 365 Contact Center now allows organizations to set wrap-up time in seconds. This feature enables adaptation of wrap-up procedures to fit different operational requirements, accommodating both fast-paced settings and those needing additional flexibility. 

The enhanced wrap-up timer capability introduces configurable wrap-up durations starting at 30 seconds, down from the previous one-minute minimum. This flexibility allows contact centers to align wrap-up timing with service representative workflows and business goals. 

Sample scenario: High-volume retail contact center 

During a festive sale, a retail contact center faces a surge in webchat traffic. Previously, a 60-second wrap-up slowed service representatives’ availability. Now admins can set the timer to 30 seconds. This action lets them reclaim about 30 seconds per conversation without sacrificing note quality. 

Business benefits 

Organizations adopting second-level wrap-up timers can expect: 

• Improved service representative availability, especially in high-volume environments 

• Faster response times, helping meet SLA targets 

• Reduced operational costs, by minimizing idle time and optimizing service representative utilization 

These enhancements not only improve agent productivity but also contribute to better customer satisfaction and SLA compliance. 

Learn more 

To explore this feature in detail, visit the official documentation: Understand conversation states | Microsoft Learn

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If you’re in sales and concerned that AI-generated outreach email might turn customers off, you’re not alone. Many sellers worry that automated outreach can feel impersonal, potentially eroding trust and damaging relationships. But our recent study paints a different picture—one that’s surprisingly optimistic. Survey responses from 45 businesses across industries–including education, banking, healthcare and tech— a different perspective and offer fresh insights into how AI-generated B2B outreach emails are actually being received.  

The Emotional Rollercoaster of Outreach Emails 

Before diving into AI topics in our survey, we mapped the emotional journey of customers with traditional outreach emails.  

The typical experience? Overwhelming, confusing, and often frustrating. Customers scan their inboxes, wary of spam and irrelevant offers. Even when an email seems promising, unclear next steps and clunky unsubscribe processes leave them annoyed. 

What they crave is simplicity: clarity, relevance, and control. 

Consent Is King 

Customers want absolute control over their inboxes. They define consent as an active opt-in—not a passive assumption. They expect clear unsubscribe options with confirmation messages and, ideally, deletion of personal data. 

Tone, Trust, and the AI Factor 

Customers are savvy. They verify senders, research companies on LinkedIn, and judge emails by their subject lines. Trust is not just built by who sends the email—but also how it’s sent. Personalization, transparency, and a clear value proposition matter more than whether the sender is human or AI.  

In fact, 33 out of 45 customers felt comfortable with AI agents doing outreach, and 5 were neutral. That’s 84% who didn’t mind—or even preferred—AI, as long as the message was relevant, concise and respectful. 

AI vs. Human: It’s Not a Battle—It’s a Balance 

Most customers said they wouldn’t treat an AI outreach email any differently than one from a human. The catch? They want the option to escalate to a human when things get complex—especially around pricing, payment, or sensitive data. As more companies use AI in outreach emails, customers may become more receptive to engaging with AI.  

They’re fine with AI handling initial outreach, answering basic questions, and even creating invoices. But when it comes to trust-building moments, human touch still matters. 

What Selling Companies Should Do 

If you’re considering AI outreach, here’s what our research suggests: 

• Humanize the message: Make AI-generated email copy more engaging and relatable by using everyday language, align it with your brand’s voice and tone, and personalize the email with customer names and purchase history. 

• Be transparent: Clearly state that the email is AI-generated—but make it indistinguishable in tone and quality from human. 

• Respect consent: Offer easy opt-outs, confirmations, and data privacy assurances. 

• Transparency on data security: Emphasize robust data security and privacy protections of info shared with AI as it is critical to building trust 

• Know when to hand off: Let AI handle the routine, but bring in humans for negotiation, escalation, and final transactions. 

Ready to engage with your customers using AI?  

Dynamics 365 Sales offers Sales Qualification Agent, which works around the clock to automate pipeline qualification and improve lead quality. Sales Qualification Agent proactively researches information about the lead and company, and can  identify customer fit and stage in the buying journey. The agent can also engage hundreds of leads at once with personalized e-mails and follow-ups. Your organization can configure the agent to meet the needs of your business, like handoff criteria for when it’s time to pass the lead to a seller.  

Final Thought: The Bar Is Low—Raise It with AI 

Customers aren’t rejecting AI—they’re rejecting bad outreach. Poorly crafted emails, pushy tactics, and irrelevant offers have set the bar low. AI-generated content, when done right, can raise that bar by being efficient, respectful, and surprisingly personable. 

So yes, bots belong in the inbox. Just make sure they’re the kind your customers want to talk to. 

Please Note: This is a developing area, and we will keep updating the information as we gather more information through further research. This study had a skew towards customers who have higher AI proficiency and were buying SaaS and logistics/ops products. The questions were asked strictly keeping transactional high volume low value B2B outreach in mind. 

The post AI in the inbox: Are your customers ready to embrace AI-powered outreach?  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Forward-looking organizations of all sizes that are looking to grow, scale, and accomplish more with the tools that they have today understand that managing financial data alone is not enough. These businesses need tools that centralize, manage, and optimize business processes from end to end.

Most teams looking to “graduate” from simplistic accounting software or outdated systems of record turn to cloud-first, and increasingly AI-powered Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to deliver on this end-to-end vision.

If you’re thinking about end-to-end business management, and your business runs on Microsoft applications already for things like email, productivity, and business intelligence, there’s a Microsoft solution tailor-made for you: Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Connect finance, sales, service, and operations.

Learn more

We believe that Business Central is a rock-solid ERP solution in its own right, helping over 45,000 small and medium businesses (SMBs) worldwide manage finance, operations, sales, and service in one solution—but it doesn’t end there. On top of that rock-solid foundation, you get the muscle of Microsoft AI, the extensibility of thousands of apps on AppSource, and, yes, native connectivity to the Microsoft 365 services and applications you’re already using.

Here’s a taste of what that means in practice:

• Data connectivity: Business Central synchronizes financial, operational, and customer data with Microsoft 365 apps, enabling users to access up-to-date information and edit that data in familiar interfaces like Excel without the need for middleware.
• Workflow automation: With Microsoft Power Automate, users can create automated workflows that bridge Business Central and Microsoft 365, streamlining processes such as approvals, notifications, and document management. Tools like Agent Builder and Microsoft Copilot Studio are enabling businesses to deliver powerful, AI-first workflows that run through Microsoft systems and beyond.
• Embedded experiences: Users can interact with Business Central data from within Microsoft 365 apps. For example, they can view and edit Business Central records in Excel, manage invoices and quotes in Outlook, and collaborate on business data in Microsoft Teams—all without switching contexts.
• Security and identity: Both platforms share Azure Active Directory for authentication and authorization, ensuring secure access and unified identity management across the integrated environment.
• AI and insights: The integration enables AI-powered features such as Microsoft Copilot and both prebuilt and custom agents, leveraging combined data from Business Central and Microsoft 365 to provide intelligent recommendations, automate routine tasks, and deliver actionable insights within daily workflows.

This architecture empowers SMBs to streamline operations, accelerate decision-making, and enhance customer experiences by leveraging unified data, automated processes, and AI-powered tools—all inside the applications teams use every day.

The nuts and bolts of seamless systems

Let’s take a deeper look at how these integrations can work in practice, the value that it can offer businesses, and the steps needed to manage these processes.

Outlook: Business Central can be made available in Outlook’s sidebar, and administrators even have the option to make finance, customer, and inventory insights available to users without a Business Central license. Advanced tools like Sales Order Agent in Business Central take this interconnectivity even further. With Sales Order Agent, inbound order requests can be fulfilled in Business Central automatically, taking into account inventory and customer preferences. All of this saves time and allows staff to focus on growth, not busy work.

Excel: Business Central allows users to view and edit business data—such as financial reports, budgets, or inventory lists—directly in Excel. The two-way synchronization means that changes made in Excel are instantly reflected in Business Central, and vice versa. This eliminates manual data exports and imports, reduces errors, and empowers finance teams to work with live data in a tool they know well. AI again can take these synergies a step further through Back Reconciliation with Copilot, saving hours of time and effort on month-end operations.

Teams: Collaboration is enhanced through Teams, where users can share Business Central records, discuss transactions, and make decisions together without switching apps. Teams’ chat and meeting features combine with Business Central’s business data—enabling sales, finance, and operations teams to work together in real time. This boosts transparency and ensures everyone is aligned on the latest information. With tools like Copilot Studio, you can create AI-powered agents in Teams that automatically update customer information, generate sales quotes, and centralize operational and engagement data in one place.

These connections work so well that you won’t even think about them, enabling better customer experience, faster growth, and a future-ready foundation for innovation.

Customers reaping the benefits of end-to-end connectivity

This of course isn’t a hypothetical—customers are seeing the benefits of unifying Business Central within the broader Microsoft ecosystem every day.

You can read many of these customer stories right now.

We see in many of these case studies how customers benefit significantly from the integration of Microsoft 365 and Business Central thanks to the seamless ease of use across familiar tools. By embedding business insights and workflows into applications like Outlook, Excel, and Teams, users are empowered to complete daily tasks without constantly switching between different systems. This intuitive experience minimizes the learning curve, reduces manual data entry, and ensures that employees can access real-time information within the environments they use every day. As a result, even those without a Business Central license can gain valuable insights, making financial and operational data more accessible and actionable for a broader range of users. 

The interconnectivity between Microsoft 365 and Business Central creates a unified digital workspace where data flows freely and processes are automated. Teams can collaborate in real time, make informed decisions together, and maintain alignment across departments through shared records and synchronized updates. This shared digital language eliminates silos and fosters transparency, allowing everyone in the organization to speak the same “data language.” Ultimately, these capabilities drive efficiency, enable faster innovation, and support growth by creating a future-ready foundation where technology adapts to business needs rather than standing in the way. 

A future-ready foundation

Integrating Business Central with Microsoft 365 is more than a technical upgrade—it’s a strategic shift. By unifying data, automating workflows, and embracing AI, SMBs gain the agility, resilience, and speed to grow confidently.

Whether you’re a manufacturer optimizing your supply chain, a finance team closing faster in Excel, or a partner building vertical solutions, Business Central + Microsoft 365 gives you a future-ready platform ready to tackle today’s challenges and set you up to own the future.

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