What’s new in October for Microsoft Business Applications?

October shows how rapidly the Microsoft ecosystem is marching toward agentic AI and “governed productivity”. The new Microsoft Marketplace combines procurement and governance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 delivers noticeably more transparency (hierarchical visualizations in Sales, smarter voice IVR in Dynamics 365 Contact Center), and the Power Platform becomes even more modular and autonomous with Power Apps UDFs and Microsoft Copilot Studio. In addition, there are productive updates in Power BI, Power Pages, and Copilot Chat, which are integrated directly into Word, Excel, and other applications.

Microsoft Marketplace: One place for cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents

The new Microsoft Marketplace now provides a central location to find, test, and purchase cloud solutions, AI apps, and agents, with rapid deployment directly in your Microsoft environment. Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource are being merged into a single experience, starting in the US, with other markets to follow. The “New” category includes over 3,000 AI apps and agents that complement Microsoft 365 Copilot and Azure AI Foundry, among others (partner update). For decision-makers, this means fewer procurement hurdles, consistent governance, and faster value for Microsoft Dynamics 365, the Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot.

Dynamics 365 Sales: Hierarchies are finally under visual control

With the new Hierarchy Visualization in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, administrators can build visual hierarchies in minutes and give sales teams a clear view of customer organizations. The view allows complex company structures and superordinate and subordinate relationships to be clearly visualized. The new hierarchy view puts an end to confusing tables and offers an intuitive representation of main and sub-elements. This allows users to immediately see how customer organizations are structured and identify the right contact persons. This saves time and reduces errors when maintaining CRM data. Benefits for sales teams: Greater transparency in customer hierarchies enables more accurate forecasts and better cross-selling strategies.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center: smarter telephony, more accurate recognition, faster wrap-up

Dynamics 365 Contact Center closes the gap between UCaaS and CCaaS. Other highlights for this module this month include:

• Microsoft Teams Phone Extensibility connects telephony directly, including advanced routing and call automation.
• Constrained Speech Recognition recognizes structured inputs (IDs, codes) much more accurately, ideal for regulated processes and IVR workflows.
• HD Voices make voice agents sound more natural and enable more empathetic interactions.
• Wrap-up Timers can now be configured down to the second, increasing availability and improving SLA fulfillment.

Power Apps: more logic, fewer clicks – now with user-defined functions and Copilot Studio

The Power Apps platform is becoming even more flexible: User Defined Functions (UDFs) are now generally available. This allows recurring formulas to be defined centrally and used multiple times, resulting in fewer redundancies, better maintainability, and faster loading times. Ideal for complex canvas apps that need to be modular.

Exciting for the future: Copilot Studio creates autonomous agents that execute business processes independently, from Dataverse updates to automated approvals. This opens up new scenarios for AI-powered automation directly in the Power Platform.

Power BI: Modeling on the web, TMDL GA, and better teamwork

Power BI brings complete modeling to the browser: relationships, DAX, RLS, and Power Query directly in the service, ideal for quickly maintaining parent-child relationships. The new TMDL View is generally available and enables code-first editing, including diff view. Power BI Desktop is hardened for this and plays nicely with external tools. In Microsoft Teams, shared Power BI content now opens in a separate window. This keeps the chat visible and makes collaboration smoother.

Power Pages: AI-powered search and summaries for better self-service experiences

The new feature in Power Pages makes searching on company websites significantly smarter: Generative AI concisely summarizes content and delivers context-related answers directly in the search results. This reduces the number of clicks and increases user satisfaction, especially for complex knowledge portals or customer portals.

For companies, this means less support effort and faster information delivery. Customers find relevant product information immediately, which increases the conversion rate and shortens the path to purchase.

Copilot Chat: AI support directly in Word, Excel, and more

With Copilot Chat, AI support now comes seamlessly to Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. Users can ask questions, draft content, or summarize files, all in a contextually secure manner, at no additional cost to existing Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Particularly exciting: content can now be edited directly via “Open in Word,” and the new Copilot Chat Quality Roadmap introduces monthly improvements, including chat references, web grounding, and image editing steps.

This means quotes, presentations, and emails can be created faster – with AI-powered text optimization and automated summaries directly in the familiar Microsoft 365 apps.

Conclusion: Greater efficiency and flexibility with Microsoft Business Applications

The new features presented in Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Copilot Studio show how modern technologies can simplify processes and improve collaboration. If you would like to learn more about the possibilities or see how these solutions fit into your existing workflows, you can find more information on our product pages. Our experts are available to answer any questions you may have.