Episode 516: Business Central Is Transforming Business Management: Insights from Mike Morton
Interview with Mike Morton, recorded at Directions North America 2026, on Business Central's growth past 50,000 installations and its AI direction. It covers the expense agent, which was announced as available this year, and advice to start with enterprise AI tools such as 365 Copilot. It also covers a vision of fewer manual data-entry tasks, natural language and phone-capture workflows, more interactions from Teams, Outlook and M365, and continued commitment to the Business Central UI.
- Business Central Growth Milestone and Market Expansion
- Regional Growth Strategies and Market Opportunities
- AI Strategy and Messaging to Partners and Customers
- Getting Started with AI: Practical Advice for Organizations
- Starting Simple and Building Confidence with AI Tools
- Future UI Evolution and User Interaction Paradigm Shift
- Headless ERP and the Shift from Data Entry to Value Creation
- Closing Remarks and Contact Information
Overview
In this Dynamics Corner episode, Mike Morton discusses Business Central’s growth to over 50,000 installations and says growth has accelerated. He also covers regional growth and how Microsoft talks about AI to partners and customers.
The conversation then turns to practical AI adoption: start with simple tasks and build confidence. He describes a future where users interact with Business Central from Teams, Outlook and M365 and spend less time on data entry and navigation, while the Business Central UI continues to be maintained and improved.
Key points
- Business Central has grown to over 50,000 installations, and Morton says growth has accelerated rather than slowed. Europe is historically strongest, while the US, South America and Asia are named as growth opportunities.
- The expense agent was announced at the conference as available this year. Morton describes snapping an expense with a phone and letting the system process it.
- To get started with AI, Morton calls 365 Copilot the most fundamental tool, made powerful by its Microsoft Graph integration (mail, calendar, Teams).
- Tools like ChatGPT can be used, but organizations should use enterprise versions, since consumer tools lack the best capabilities.
- Advice for adopting AI: describe the problem you want to solve, don’t overthink it, and start with simpler tasks to build confidence.
- Invoice handling is described as a future vision: upload an invoice, let the system process it, then correct or answer specific questions instead of filling in fields one by one.
- More interactions are expected to come from Teams, Outlook, M365 or ambient interfaces. The pace is uncertain because ERP has to be right and accurate.
Features
| Feature | Status | At | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expense Agent | announced | 3:04 | “And even at the conference it was announced that the expense agent will be available this year as well.” (3:04) |
| Natural Language Invoice Processing | status not stated | 10:10 | |
| AI-Enhanced Payables Processing | status not stated | 5:36 | |
| UI Evolution with AI-Enabled Workflows | status not stated | 10:10 | |
| Interactions from External Tools | status not stated | 11:38 |
Quotes
- 0:45 “Business Central has grown to over 50,000 installations”
- 1:22 “we’ve just continued to see see sort of the opposite. Seen kind of acceleration in in growth”
- 3:04 “the expense agent will be available this year”
- 6:27 “the most fundamental tool for that is in 365 Copilot”
- 10:10 “there is going to be a decent amount of transition of people spending less time in the depths of the app where you’re going”
Disclaimers in the video
- 3:04 other: the expense agent will be available this year
- 10:10 coming-later: there is going to be a decent amount of transition of people spending less time in the depths of the app
- 11:38 coming-later: more and more of the interactions will be from the other tools people use whether that’s Teams or Outlook or M365
Presenters (as heard): Mike Morton, Chris, Brad.