Microsoft presents: Introducing M365 Copilot Chat in Business Central

Overview

Microsoft presenters explain how M365 Copilot Chat becomes the home for Copilot experiences in Business Central and completely replaces the current BC Copilot chat. They trace the move from chat to agents and immersive experiences, then demo querying BC data with citations, page and record context, attachments, rich content, exporting analysis to Word, and carrying a conversation into other Microsoft 365 apps.

The session also covers the tools and agentic loop behind multi-step queries, permission handling (tools run as the user), admin portal controls, licensing, version limits, preview access and extensibility through Copilot Studio. Several items, such as free limited access for BC-only users, credit consumption and write actions, are stated as still to be determined.

Key points

• M365 Copilot Chat completely replaces the existing Copilot chat in Business Central; the old chat goes away.
• First version is read-only: it can query and analyze BC data and give guidance, but cannot create or change records.
• BC data is queried only when chat is used inside Business Central, not from Outlook or Teams, though chat history carries over to those apps.
• Tools run as the signed-in user, so existing permission sets and access controls still apply. Admins control access via the Copilot and agent capabilities page and M365 admin portal settings.
• Full capability needs a Copilot license. Limited free access for BC-only users is being investigated, and credit consumption details are still TBD.
• Planned for public release in BC 29 (somewhere between October and April, dates unconfirmed). Not planned for BC 28 and earlier or on-premises. Currently private preview for MVPs; partners may get early access sandboxes with a partner sandbox license.
• Users cannot add their own tools now; extensibility is through Copilot Studio agents. Partners should add tooltips and use clear names and page names so Copilot can use their extensions.

Features

A status with a roadmap link comes from the Microsoft 365 roadmap feature this part of the video covers (matched by Haiku; links Opus dropped are not used); other statuses need a status word in the video itself.

AL objects mentioned

As heard in the captions. A name that matches one object page by exact type and name links to it; the others stay as named.

• other “inventory table” at 8:38
• page 9305 “Sales Order List” at 20:14
• page 31 “Item List” at 21:20
• page “customer” at 18:26
• other “sales orders” at 24:55
• other “sales lines” at 25:06
• page “Copilot and agent capabilities page” at 29:45

Not found in BC28-30: page “customer”, page “Copilot and agent capabilities page”.

Quotes

• 3:58 “Now we have agents, right? So we realized that not only can the LLM do natural language processing, it can also make decisions,”
• 5:46 “the chat is the home for all of these experiences. You know, we’ve kind of come full circle with this technology back to chat”
• 6:23 “How many Athens desk do we have in stock? And Copilot would say, Sorry, I can’t do that because it’s not connected together, right?”
• 7:05 “We’re going to bring M365 Copilot into BC. And so, rather than talk your ear off about how great it is, I will just”
• 11:00 “the Business Central data, requesting it, seeing it, that’s only available when you’re talking to M365 chat within Business Central.”

Disclaimers in the video

• 7:16 preview: This time in my uh special special next version environment just for uh for this demo, for the conference.
• 14:05 subject-to-change: At the moment, this is all like the BC integration is limited to when you use Copilot inside Business Central.
• 14:28 coming-later: for now, we’re trying to just keep the experience into Business Central, make sure that it’s solid so that in …
• 14:43 coming-later: we are trying to bring one other part of this whole suite, which is your Microsoft Copilot Studio agents.
• 16:00 subject-to-change: you know, like it’s in a limited capacity for now. You need to be in Business Central to use the Business Central tools.
• 28:11 subject-to-change: we are investigating whether we can give you limited access to this so you can operate on only the BC …
• 32:41 subject-to-change: any things that are coming down the line uh are kind of like still TBD
• 36:09 coming-later: we’re planning a public release for BC 29
• 36:33 coming-later: we are hoping to give access to to that preview in the coming months before the official rollout
• 38:29 preview: This is preview.
• 38:40 subject-to-change: We are still working on what we want to bring next.
• 39:33 subject-to-change: it’s defined as a capability that you need to enable and it’s said it’s Microsoft built
• 39:47 subject-to-change: the specific like technical details of what we can do, right? We’re figuring out
• 40:00 subject-to-change: the full details are TBD
• 40:00 coming-later: the full details are TBD
• 43:00 preview: do try to get access to private preview, and then try it out

Presenters (as heard): Anson, Yulia, Elia, Erdem, Julia, Poaje, Luke.