Dynamics 365 Sales & Customer Insights fall 2026 update: What’s new

Microsoft’s fall 2026 updates to Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights introduce new and enhanced capabilities for sales automation, product configuration, customer data management, and AI-powered marketing. These updates help organizations identify promising leads, reduce manual work, manage complex sales processes, and deliver more relevant customer communications.

The Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights 2026 release wave 2 timeframe also marks a change in how Microsoft communicates product updates. Microsoft retired its twice-yearly release wave publishing model in September 2026, moving new feature announcements to the AI at Work roadmap. Learn more about Microsoft’s transition to the AI at Work roadmap. Below, we explore the most important updates, including recently introduced features, upcoming capabilities, their business benefits, and what organizations should consider before adopting them.

The Dynamics 365 Sales 2026 release wave 2 timeframe brings additional capabilities for managing complex sales transactions alongside enhancements to AI-assisted selling. These Dynamics 365 Sales updates help organizations maintain accurate customer records, apply more consistent pricing policies, and reduce manual work.

Configure complex products with new product and pricing rules

Businesses that sell configurable products often need to manage compatibility requirements, product combinations, and pricing adjustments. Without consistent rules, sellers may create quotes with incompatible products or apply incorrect pricing.

Microsoft has announced two upcoming Dynamics 365 Sales capabilities designed to address these challenges: product configuration rules and attribute-based and volume-based pricing rules.

Create product rules to guide sellers to valid configurations

Administrators will be able to define compatibility, inclusion, and exclusion rules within a single composite product. These rules will guide sellers when configuring products on a quote line, helping them select valid combinations.

For example, an equipment manufacturer could define which accessories are compatible with a specific machine. When a seller configures the product, Dynamics 365 Sales would provide guidance based on the configured rules.

Create attribute-based and volume-based pricing rules

Administrators will also be able to define pricing rules that adjust prices based on product attributes or order quantities. These include:

• Attribute-based price adjustments: Apply additional list-price amounts based on selected product characteristics.
• Tiered volume discounts: Adjust discounts according to defined quantity tiers.
• Absolute volume adjustments: Apply pricing changes based on specified quantity rules.

For a distributor selling configurable equipment, these capabilities could reduce manual pricing calculations and help sellers prepare more consistent quotes. They can also help businesses apply pricing policies that support their margin objectives.

Availability: Microsoft has announced these capabilities with planned general availability in March 2027. They should be treated as upcoming features rather than functionality already available to all customers.

Expand AI-powered CRM data enrichment with customer notes

Customer information often exists across emails, meetings, and manually entered CRM notes. When important details remain buried in these interactions, sales teams may miss information that could improve customer engagement. The fall 2026 enhancements to AI-powered Data Enrichment give administrators more control over which information sources the agent uses. The update also adds support for CRM notes as a source of enrichment information.

Supported sources include:

• Outlook emails
• Microsoft Teams meetings
• CRM notes added to supported records

Administrators can enable or disable each source separately. The agent can continue operating as long as at least one supported source is enabled. This added flexibility allows organizations to choose data sources based on their business processes and permission requirements. Outlook emails and Teams meetings require the relevant connections, while CRM notes can be used without the same tenant-level consent requirements.

For example, a sales representative might record that a customer plans to open two new locations next year. The enrichment agent can use information from eligible CRM notes to help update the relevant customer record. By making better use of information employees already capture, organizations can reduce manual data maintenance and help sellers work with more complete customer records.

Important: CRM notes used by the enrichment agent must be created by users with Dynamics 365 Sales Premium licenses. Outlook and Teams sources also require the appropriate permissions.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data helps organizations combine customer information from multiple sources into unified profiles. The Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data 2026 release wave 2 timeframe brings enhancements that make this information easier to access, analyze, and use across business applications. Key improvements focus on AI integration, customer segmentation, and Microsoft Fabric connectivity.

Ground AI agents in unified customer insights

AI agents can help employees answer questions and perform tasks, but the quality of their responses depends on the information they can access. The Customer Insights Model Context Protocol (MCP) server allows supported AI agents to retrieve customer information from Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data. This gives agents access to information that may not exist in an individual CRM record.

Supported insights include:

• Unified customer profiles from multiple data sources.
• Customer segments and calculated measures.
• Purchase and engagement information available in unified profiles.
• Predictive insights, such as customer lifetime value and churn risk, when configured.
• Information that helps identify duplicate customer records.

For example, a sales representative preparing for a customer meeting could use an AI agent to review the customer’s purchase history, loyalty status, and recent engagement. Rather than searching several systems, the seller can access relevant information through an agent connected to Customer Insights – Data.

Sales, marketing, and service teams can use this more complete customer view to support informed decisions, identify opportunities, and improve engagement. The capability also creates opportunities for organizations developing custom AI agents in Microsoft Copilot Studio.

Improve audience targeting using previous campaign engagement

Traditional audience segmentation often relies on customer details such as industry, location, purchase history, or account size. However, customers with similar profiles may respond differently to marketing campaigns. The fall 2026 update allows Customer Insights – Data to use behavioral information captured by Customer Insights – Journeys, including email opens and link clicks.

Marketing teams can combine these engagement signals with unified customer information to create more specific audiences. For example, a B2B distributor sends an email promoting a new product line. Some customers click the product link, while others receive the email but do not engage. Using Customer Insights – Data, the distributor can refine its segments based on those interactions and develop different follow-up campaigns.

Organizations can use this capability to:

• Identify audiences that engaged with previous campaigns.
• Create segments based on engagement and customer attributes.
• Combine marketing interactions with purchase and account data.
• Identify customers who may benefit from different follow-up messaging.
• Develop more relevant campaigns for different customer groups.

Rather than sending the same follow-up message to every contact, marketing teams can use engagement behavior to create more relevant campaigns and focus their efforts on customers showing interest.

Connect customer insights with Microsoft Fabric OneLake

Customer data often exists across CRM, ERP, ecommerce, and other business systems. Bringing that information together for analysis can require complex integrations and data pipelines. The fall 2026 updates expand the connection between Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data and Microsoft Fabric OneLake. Two enhancements support this connection.

• Access unified customer insights in OneLake: Organizations can use Fabric shortcuts to access unified customer profiles and insights managed by Customer Insights – Data. This makes the information available for supported analytics and downstream workloads without creating additional copies through traditional data movement processes.
• Use OneLake as a customer data source: Customer Insights – Data can also read supported data stored in Microsoft Fabric OneLake. Organizations can use Fabric capabilities, including shortcuts and mirroring, to make information from other systems available for customer data processing. For example, a distributor may store customer account information in Dynamics 365 Sales, order history in an ERP system, and purchasing data in a separate platform. With Microsoft Fabric and Customer Insights – Data, the organization can bring relevant information together to support customer analysis and segmentation.

These capabilities can reduce data integration work, improve access to customer information, and help organizations make better use of existing analytics investments. The specific configuration depends on the organization’s Fabric environment, data sources, and integration requirements.

The Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys 2026 release wave 2 timeframe highlights new and evolving capabilities for personalized marketing and customer engagement. These updates focus on AI-assisted campaign development, improved outreach scheduling, and stronger connections between marketing and sales activities.

Build customer journeys faster with Journey Creation Agent

Building customer journeys traditionally requires marketers to configure triggers, wait periods, conditions, and communication steps manually. Journey Creation Agent offers a conversational approach to creating those journeys. Introduced in preview for customers in North America and Oceania with the June 2026 update, the agent is one of the newer AI capabilities organizations can evaluate as part of their fall 2026 planning. Instead of building every step from scratch, marketers can describe their campaign goals using natural language.

For example, a marketer could request:

“Create a re-engagement journey for customers who haven’t purchased in 90 days. Send an email first, then follow up with a reminder if they don’t engage.”

The agent interprets the request and proposes a journey structure.

Key capabilities include:

• Natural-language creation: Describe the audience, campaign objective, and communication sequence.
• Journey configuration: Generate proposed steps, timing, conditions, and branching logic.
• Follow-up questions: Refine the journey by answering questions or requesting changes.
• Existing content reuse: Reference available segments, triggers, and marketing assets.
• Human review: Inspect and adjust the generated journey before publishing.

The agent focuses on assembling the journey. Marketers must still ensure that the required segments, content, and business rules are ready. By reducing the time required to design journeys, marketers can spend less time configuring campaign workflows and more time reviewing messaging, customer segments, and campaign performance. Journey Creation Agent also replaces the earlier Journey Copilot experience, giving marketers a more conversational way to build and refine customer journeys using existing content and segments.

Availability: Journey Creation Agent remains a preview feature as of October 2026. It is available only in English, requires administrator enablement, and consumes Copilot credits.

Optimize marketing outreach timing with AI

Choosing when to send marketing emails can affect campaign engagement, but manually determining the right timing for different audiences is difficult. Outreach Optimization Agent introduces AI-assisted email scheduling within Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys. The agent analyzes historical engagement patterns to select suitable send times for marketing messages.

Capabilities include:

• Analyzing historical email engagement to identify preferred send windows.
• Scheduling individual emails and multi-email sequences.
• Using fallback scheduling when historical data is limited.
• Respecting configured quiet times.
• Honoring contact-point consent preferences.

For example, a professional services company could use Outreach Optimization Agent to schedule a series of educational emails for prospects. Instead of manually choosing the delivery time for every message, the agent uses engagement history to determine appropriate send times within the configured communication windows.

This allows marketing teams to spend less time managing email schedules while using customer engagement information to guide outreach timing.

Availability: Outreach Optimization Agent is currently in preview and requires administrator enablement and Copilot credits.

The current preview tracks engagement goals but does not automatically cancel remaining queued emails when a goal has been achieved. Marketers should account for this behavior when designing multi-email sequences.

Create sales and service activities directly from customer journeys

Marketing campaigns often generate actions that require follow-up from sales or customer service teams. For example, a prospect might request additional information, or an existing customer might indicate interest in another service. Traditionally, organizations may use separate automation workflows to create records or assign follow-up activities.

The updated Customer Insights – Journeys experience allows marketers to create supported Dataverse records and activities directly from the journey builder.

Supported examples include:

• Tasks
• Phone calls
• Leads
• Opportunities
• Supported custom records

Marketers can define required fields and use dynamic values from the contact or lead to populate the new record. For example, when a prospect completes a qualifying action in a marketing journey, the system could create a sales task with the prospect’s information and assign it for follow-up. This connects marketing engagement with operational follow-up, reducing manual handoffs and helping sales teams respond to customer interest more consistently.

Availability: Microsoft made this capability generally available in September 2026. It supports journeys based on contacts and leads, not unified Customer Insights – Data profiles. Record creation also depends on supported relationships, user permissions, and record types.

How should businesses prepare for the fall 2026 updates?

The new Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights capabilities offer opportunities to improve sales productivity, customer engagement, and marketing automation. However, organizations should evaluate their existing systems, data, and business processes before adopting new features.

1. Review feature availability and licensing: Confirm which capabilities are generally available, which remain in preview, and which require administrator configuration. Review licensing requirements, Copilot credit consumption, geographic availability, and any additional permissions before enabling new features.
2. Evaluate your customer and product data: Check for duplicate contacts, outdated customer information, inconsistent product records, and pricing discrepancies. Organizations interested in the upcoming product configuration and pricing rules should also review product relationships, discount structures, and pricing policies. Reliable data helps support accurate customer insights and consistent sales processes.
3. Identify processes that would benefit from automation: Review activities that require significant manual effort, such as CRM data maintenance, complex quote preparation, campaign development, and marketing-to-sales handoffs. Prioritize processes where new capabilities can reduce repetitive tasks and improve accuracy.
4. Test AI features before wider adoption: Use realistic business scenarios to evaluate how agents interpret customer information, follow qualification rules, and execute supported actions. For marketing agents, verify journey logic, audience selection, consent settings, message timing, and follow-up activities. Preview capabilities should be evaluated carefully because their functionality may change.
5. Train sales and marketing teams: Help employees understand how to use new AI recommendations, review generated content, and recognize situations that require human judgment. Clear ownership and ongoing monitoring can improve adoption and maintain consistent business processes.

How Rand Group helps you adopt new Dynamics 365 capabilities

New Dynamics 365 features create opportunities to improve sales and marketing processes, but successful adoption requires the right data, configuration, and training. With more than 20 years of experience in Microsoft business applications, Rand Group helps organizations implement and optimize Dynamics 365 solutions that support their business goals. Our consultants combine technical knowledge with practical experience in sales processes, CRM integration, and business automation.

Rand Group helps organizations evaluate new capabilities, improve customer data, configure AI agents and workflows, and train employees to use the tools effectively. Our experience includes helping businesses connect sales and financial processes, such as implementing Dynamics 365 Sales alongside Business Central to improve visibility across departments. Rather than adopting every new feature, we help organizations prioritize the capabilities that address their business challenges and deliver meaningful operational improvements.

Frequently asked questions

Get more value from the latest Dynamics 365 updates with Rand Group

Microsoft continues to expand the AI and automation capabilities available across Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights. Understanding which features apply to your business is the first step toward getting value from these updates.

Rand Group helps organizations evaluate, implement, configure, and optimize Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions. Our consultants work with sales, marketing, and IT teams to improve customer data management, streamline processes, and support the adoption of new capabilities. Whether you’re exploring AI agents, improving lead management, or connecting sales and marketing processes, contact Rand Group to discuss how the latest Dynamics 365 capabilities can support your business.