Directions EMEA 2025 brought together the global Dynamics 365 Business Central community to explore how AI, automation and new agent-driven capabilities are reshaping business applications. Partners, ISVs and Microsoft experts gathered in Poznań to share product updates, roadmap insights and real examples of how AI is becoming a practical part of everyday operations. The event offered clear direction on where Business Central is heading and what partners should prepare for in the coming year.
What is Directions EMEA?
Directions EMEA is the main annual conference for Dynamics 365 Business Central partners across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It brings together ISVs, resellers, CSPs, developers, consultants, and business leaders to explore product updates, partner strategies and networking opportunities within the Business Central ecosystem. For attendees, this Business Central partner event provides direct access to Microsoft experts, real roadmap clarity and practical guidance they can use to strengthen solutions and better support their customers.
Theme of 2025: AI Ready
The theme for Directions EMEA 2025 centered on becoming “AI Ready.” This year highlighted how Business Central is shifting toward intelligent automation through built-in agents, natural-language-driven development and next-generation cloud capabilities. Sessions emphasized practical ways partners can prepare their solutions, services and customers for an AI-first future.
Core focus areas included:
- Built-in Business Central agents such as Payables Agent and Sales Order Agent
- The new Agent Playground for testing and customizing AI-driven workflows
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server expanding integration options
- A refreshed product identity supporting Microsoft’s AI-focused direction
In short, the 2025 theme showed that AI agents, natural-language development and cloud resiliency will guide the next stage of Business Central.
Session Highlights & What Was Covered
With over 300 sessions spanning executive, technical, development, marketing and sales tracks, attendees had deep dives into how the ecosystem is evolving.
Here’s a summary of major focus areas:
1. Strategic & Partner-Business Sessions
These discussions reinforced that AI will become a core part of partner offerings rather than a separate add-on.
- Growth of Business Central: The customer base reportedly reached over 50,000 companies globally.
- Partner business models in the AI era: How ISVs and service providers must evolve to offer AI-powered value rather than just traditional ERP/CRM services.
- Cloud scalability and global deployment: Insights into data localization and multi-region support.
2. Product & Platform Updates
The message was clear: Business Central is moving toward a more intelligent, automated and globally flexible cloud platform.
- Agent-first architectures: Sessions on how agents will perform tasks, integrate with Business Central modules, and enable “vibe coding” (natural-language driven development).
- Quality Management module: Especially for manufacturing and production, quality control was embedded as part of the Business Central roadmap.
- Development tools evolution: Low-code/no-code enhancements, expanded APIs, telemetry, multi-agent workflows, and embedding AI directly into extensions.
3. Developer & Technical Advances
These capabilities provide developers with new ways to accelerate delivery while maintaining high-quality solutions.
- “Vibe Coding” sessions: Developers discussed leveraging AI to generate code, prototypes and even full modules with minimal manual coding.
- Developer best practices: Ensuring code quality, testing, deployment hygiene, and how to stay relevant in an agent-powered landscape.
- Integration & extension frameworks: How Business Central will connect to external agents, services and platforms using MCP Server and custom agents.
4. Marketing, Sales & Customer-Success
These insights offered practical guidance for partners managing customer expectations and building growth strategies.
- Messaging in the AI era: How to position AI/agent-enhanced ERP solutions to SMBs, highlighting outcome vs hype.
- Land-and-expand models: As Business Central grows, partners were guided on how to capture additional modules, services and add-ons.
- Customer success stories: Real-world use cases demonstrating AI automation in invoice processing, order fulfilment and other business workflows.
In summary, the 2025 sessions showed a clear shift toward AI-driven workflows, agent-based automation, and natural-language development across Business Central.
Why This Matters for Partners & Customers
Directions EMEA 2025 highlighted a pivotal shift where AI and agent-driven automation will become core components of Business Central. Partners who embrace this direction early will gain a competitive advantage through:
- Stronger service offerings
- More efficient implementation processes
- Better alignment with Microsoft’s roadmap
- New opportunities in automation, reporting and industry-specific extensions
- Content, marketing and solution delivery will all need to reflect this AI-first direction.
These shifts mean that solution design and customer engagement strategies all need to reflect an AI-first approach. A partner with established Business Central expertise and practical AI experience can help organizations navigate the transition smoothly and adopt these capabilities with confidence. Calsoft has supported upgrades, cloud transitions and ERP improvements for more than two decades, giving customers a structured path into Microsoft’s AI-driven future.
Organizations planning upgrades or modernizing their environment can explore CloudShift Migration Services, which support structured migrations to Business Central and ensure alignment with the latest roadmap updates.
Looking Ahead: Returning to Directions EMEA in 2026
We plan to be back at Directions EMEA again next year when the event takes place in Paris. The event remains one of the most valuable gatherings for understanding Microsoft’s vision, networking with the ecosystem and planning future Business Central strategy. As AI continues to grow across the platform, staying connected to these updates is essential for staying competitive.
Teams preparing for the next stage of Business Central often need clarity on timing, upgrade paths and how AI agents will affect their workflows. If you would like guidance on how these updates may affect your Business Central roadmap, our team is available to answer questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Microsoft announced new AI agents for Business Central, the Agent Playground for building custom automations, updates for the 2026 Release Wave 1 roadmap, and a refreshed Business Central brand identity.
AI agents in Business Central are task-specific automated assistants that handle workflows such as sales orders, payables, and reporting using natural-language commands.
Release Wave 1 2026 introduces new AI agents, stronger supply chain and manufacturing features, improved reporting, and a more scalable cloud platform. Users can expect faster automation, better insights, and smoother upgrade paths as Business Central becomes more intelligent and efficient.
Directions EMEA 2026 will take place in Paris, bringing partners together once again to explore the latest updates in Dynamics 365 Business Central, AI innovation and Microsoft’s product roadmap.
