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This article gives a quick tour of AI in Business Central, covering Copilot and agent capabilities that help you streamline your processes and free up time for what is most impactful to your business. Each section explains what a capability does at a glance and links to detailed docs and AI FAQs so you can decide where it fits in your workflows.
Copilot is an AI-powered assistant that helps you work more efficiently by sparking creativity, boosting productivity, and eliminating tedious tasks. Copilot works collaboratively with you— you initiate actions, and Copilot provides suggestions, analysis, and assistance to help you complete them faster. Chat with Copilot at any time, or look for the Copilot icon on Business Central pages for specific things it can help with.
Agents are autonomous AI workers that can independently handle tasks with minimal human input. They automate specific processes, becoming a valuable member of the team where their work is transparent, reviewable and keeps people in the loop as work progresses. Agents are ideal for automating tedious, repetitive tasks or work that must happen around the clock, such as processing invoices or generating orders from emails.
Benefits of using AI in Business Central include:
- Eliminate tedious tasks, freeing up time for what is most impactful to your business.
- You won’t need to transfer your data to other unmanaged AI apps and risk your company data.
- Seamlessly integrated into your workflows and safely connected to your data.
- Designed for work and with the privacy, safety, and compliance that businesses expect, and built on Microsoft's Responsible AI principles.
- Makes Business Central easier to learn and use, and accessible to more people.
Check for availability in your country/region and preferred language, or feature documentation to learn which features are currently in preview or have specific license requirements.
AI for everyone
No matter your role, task, or the industry you work in, these Copilot features are ready to help you get work done.
Chat
Chat with Copilot to find your company data or learn how to do things in Business Central. With just a few words, Copilot will quickly locate the records you're looking for and provide links to get to the details, and will help you understand fields, processes and features of Business Central, including those from your add-on apps.
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Analysis assist
Use natural language to transform a list of records into a more meaningful layout, so that you can make data-driven decisions. Copilot helps you arrange raw data into analysis views with grouping, pivots, filters and totals, without having to leave Business Central.
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Summarize
Copilot provides quick insights, summarizing a record into a few key points tailored to your role, and displaying them automatically right alongside your data. Summaries help you understand what’s urgent and important, so you can grasp context and act faster without having to comb through fields or FactBoxes, and providing inline links to quickly get to the details.
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Autofill
Reduce tedious data entry by getting suggestions for filling in fields, so all you need to do is review and choose what to keep. Copilot makes suggestions based on your company data, uses AI to generate some values, or even searches the web to fill in the blanks. Autofill is available when creating or modifying records in card and document pages, such as sales orders, items, and also custom pages.
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AI for finance
Whether you're in Accounts Payable or Accounts Receivable, there's AI to help you eliminate those tedious tasks.
Payables Agent
Payables Agent streamlines accounts payable by monitoring your company mailbox for incoming vendor invoices, extracting the details, matching them to purchase orders and receipts, proposing posting accounts for unmatched lines, and routing exceptions, reducing manual data entry and speeding up invoice processing around the clock.
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E-document matching
Copilot's e-document matching helps you map vendor e-invoices to purchase orders and lines, proposing matches and flagging exceptions so you can process payables faster and with fewer errors.
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- Map e-documents to purchase order lines with Copilot
- Responsible AI FAQs for e-document matching (preview)
Bank account reconciliation assist
Copilot makes periodic reconciliation of your bank accounts much easier, by using AI to propose matches between bank statement transactions and ledger entries and to suggest posting accounts for unmatched lines.
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Finance solution in Microsoft 365 Copilot
Formerly Copilot for Finance, this role-based solution for Copilot brings AI assistance to financial processes like variance explanation, collections, and payment matching - all within your Microsoft 365 applications. If your organization uses it alongside Business Central, you can accelerate close activities and reduce manual review; see the documentation for setup and availability.
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- Finance solution in Microsoft 365 Copilot overview (external)
- Responsible AI FAQs for Finance (external)
AI for inventory and supply chain management
Item substitute suggestions
Copilot analyzes product data to propose compatible alternatives that show up when items are out of stock or discontinued, helping sales and service teams keep orders moving with suitable replacements.
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Suggest gas emissions in sustainability journals
For greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Copilot estimates total emissions from descriptions and input parameters and adjusts emission factors for future use.
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AI for sales, customer service, and marketing
Sales Order Agent
The Sales Order Agent automates sales orders by handling customer requests via email. From an email requesting a quote, the agent identifies the contact in Business Central, finds the request, and generates a quote for you to review and send. When the contact confirms the quote, the agent converts the quote into an order.
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Sales line suggestions
Write a few words, paste in a conversation or upload a file, and Copilot will identify the matching line items to add to a quote or order, helping you build complete, accurate sales documents faster.
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Marketing text suggestions
Copilot drafts compelling product descriptions for your items based on your tone preferences and attributes already in Business Central, giving you on-brand copy you can review and refine. If you're using the Shopify add-on to Business Central, you can publish marketing copy straight to your online store.
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AI for company setup
Whether you’re onboarding to Business Central for the first time, or expanding to new branches or subsidiaries, Copilot helps you get to doing business faster.
Number series suggestions
Number series suggestions helps you quickly set up consistent, collision-free numbering for documents and master records. Copilot proposes prefixes, formats, and lengths based on your existing data and setup conventions, so you can standardize numbering and avoid manual errors.
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Other AI and machine learning features
Business Central also includes various features that do not use generative AI, but use other AI models to help accomplish specific tasks.
Search for pages and reports
Navigate faster across Business Central's rich catalog of reports and pages by typing what you are looking for in your own words: the built-in search feature uses AI to semantically match the meaning of your search text with available pages and reports.
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Inventory forecasting
Inventory forecasting predicts future demand so you can plan replenishment, avoid stockouts, and reduce excess inventory.
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Late payment prediction
Late payment prediction scores open invoices to identify which are likely to be paid late, helping you prioritize collections and adjust terms proactively.
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Cash flow analysis
Cash flow analysis projects cash inflows and outflows using historical data and current documents, giving you a forward-looking view to manage liquidity.
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Didn't find what you're looking for?
If these AI features aren't sufficient to support the unique needs of your business, find AI-powered add-ons for Business Central on Microsoft Marketplace, or engage with your partner to build your own.
Related information
Frequently asked questions about Copilot
Configure Copilot and AI capabilities
Copilot data security and privacy