Microsoft’s 2025 Release Wave 2 for Dynamics 365 goes live on October 1. And as always, the release includes hundreds of updates and release notes that most people don’t have the time (or patience) to comb through. The question is: Which of these changes will actually affect the metrics we cares about?
Wave 2 introduces changes and new features that target many of the metrics businesses track every quarter. But overall:
- Sales teams gain clearer visibility into deal health and automated lead qualification.
- Service teams benefit from faster routing, real-time transcription, and a knowledge base that grows on its own.
- Finance leaders see faster closes with fewer errors.
- Supply chain teams keep inventory aligned with demand and improve fulfillment accuracy.
- Across Business Central, Teams, and Outlook, data flows more seamlessly, adoption rises, and governance is built in from the start.
Keeping reading. We’ve highlighted nine updates that we think have the clearest line of sight to common KPIs like win rate, sales cycle length, customer satisfaction, days to close, and adoption rates.
1. Sales Insights at the Record Level
Long sales cycles and missed opportunities often come down to poor visibility. Wave 2 changes that with Inline Copilot summaries that are displayed on opportunity and account forms, surfacing deal health the moment a seller opens the record.
A new smart grid lets you filter and sort using natural language (“show me high-value deals without a next step”), while form-fill assist and smart paste keep records accurate without extra effort.
Numbers to Care About
- Win Rate: Instead of spreading energy across every lead, sellers can zero in on the opportunities with the highest probability of closing with inline guidance and cleaner data.Sales
- Cycle Length: With next-step recommendations appearing where they are most useful, you can act faster and reduce the lag between stages.
2. Lead Qualification on Autopilot
Pipelines often stall because sellers don’t have the time or context to follow up consistently. The Sales Qualification Agent works behind the scenes to research inbound leads, validate contact details, and draft personalized outreach based on industry context. It can even pull from web sources you define, so messaging is tailored and relevant.
Numbers to Care About
- Pipeline Velocity: Because the agent continuously nudges sellers with fresh, qualified leads, opportunities don’t lose momentum, and the pipeline has fewer stalls.
- Lead Conversion Rate: Prospects receive outreach that’s more timely and specific to their needs, increasing the percentage that will progress to qualified opportunities.
3. Contact Center Intelligence
Service reps often struggle with long handle times and frustrated customers when they get passed from rep to rep. Now, with real-time transcription and sentiment analysis, service reps can respond better because they have a live view of the conversation and customer mood.
Moreover, smarter routing matches inquiries to the right agent the first time, and supervisors have bulk action tools to reassign or close cases.
Numbers to Care About
- Average Handle Time (AHT): Calls and chats wrap up faster because real-time transcripts and AI routing reduce repeat questions and transfers.
- NPS/CSAT: Customers report higher satisfaction with faster resolutions leading to improved loyalty scores.
4. Knowledge that Builds Itself
Without immediate access to case information, insights sit locked inside past service tickets. Wave 2’s Knowledge Management Agent can turn resolved cases into draft knowledge articles, steadily building a knowledge base that acts as an immediate research assistant for reps.
Copilot can also create call summaries and follow-up emails automatically, freeing agents from tedious after-call work.
Numbers to Care About
- First-Call Resolution (FCR): Service reps solve more issues on the first contact because they have access to proven answers from similar cases.
- Case Closure Time: Less time spent documenting means service reps can close tickets faster and reduce backlog.
5. Smarter Financial Close
The month-end close cycle is getting smarter. Finance teams now have AI tools in Excel that can suggest reconciliation rules and flag mismatches. A new journal framework and rules engine standardizes entries across entities and business units, eliminating much of the manual rework.
Numbers to Care About
- Days to Close: With reconciliation suggestions surfaced directly in Excel, accountants don’t need to manually match every entry and remove a common bottleneck.
- Error Rate: Standardized rules reduce error-prone postings, producing cleaner books with fewer adjustments and corrections that may be required during audits.
6. Predictive Supply Chain Planning
Stock shortages and fulfillment errors often stem from weak forecasting and slow response to supplier issues. Wave 2 strengthens planning with a new Supplier Communication Agent that reads vendor emails and updates purchase orders. In addition, upgrades to warehousing speed up picking and add better quality sampling.
Numbers to Care About
- Stockouts: Because demand plans now include promotion and seasonal signals, planners order stock earlier. And automated supplier updates prevent missed orders, reducing stockouts.
- Fulfillment Accuracy: Faster mobile scanning and quality sampling in the warehouse alleviate potential mistakes in picking and shipping, so customers get what they ordered when the order is expected.
7. Instant Reporting in Business Central
We’ve all been there — waiting days for BI or IT teams to deliver reports. With Wave 2, Business Central gets an improved Analysis Assist that turns natural language questions into instant reports and charts.
What makes this different from past reporting shortcuts is the Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration. MCP acts as a secure “interpreter” between AI agents (like Copilot) and Business Central. Instead of the agent having uncontrolled access, IT defines exactly what actions are permitted, for example, running a report, summarizing results, or posting a transaction.
Numbers to Care About
- Decision Latency: Leaders get immediate answers and can act on insights directly inside Business Central without requesting assistance or passing tasks to another system.
8. Collaboration Across Teams + Dynamics
Everyone hates switching between apps to get the right information to manually prepare for meetings. Meeting prep has a new face with Dynamics records that now sync directly into Outlook and Teams: Copilot can capture meeting notes in Teams and sync them back to CRM records, creating a complete history without extra, manual work.
Numbers to Care About
- Employee Adoption: Adoption increases when data flows seamlessly into the apps employees already use every day.
- Meeting Prep Time: Staff no longer need to manually assemble information prior to meetings and prep time drops significantly.
9. Secure-by-Default Governance
The process of rolling out new features often stalls because IT worries about governance and compliance risks. WithModel Context Protocol (MCP) servers across Dynamics apps. IT can now define exactly which AI agent actions are permitted, with all activity secured and auditable by default.
Numbers to Care About
- Compliance Issues: Guardrails prevent unauthorized agent actions, reducing the chance of audit exceptions.
- Adoption Rate: Secure-by-default governance gives IT confidence to rollout new features for users more quickly.
Ready to Put Wave 2 to Work for Your business?
At JourneyTeam, we help organizations focus on the Dynamics 365 updates that will truly drive adoption and measurable outcomes. If you need help clarifying the features that will provide the most measurable benefit for your company, contact us today.
