Your employees are eager to use AI-driven tools, but without the right training, even the most innovative systems go underused. So why is training so important?
AI training for employees equips them with the skills to understand, use, and trust artificial intelligence, which is essential in the modern workplace.
Within Microsoft Dynamics 365, AI is transforming how teams analyze data, automate workflows, and make decisions.
Yet many companies invest heavily in AI solutions, including those with generative AI capabilities, but only 1% believe their efforts have reached maturity in terms of ROI.
From the McKinsey study linked above, almost half of the employees surveyed believe that increased formal training is the best way to boost AI adoption.
In this guide, we explore how structured AI training within Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps teams confidently adopt new tools and realize faster ROI.
Why Should Companies Prioritize Dynamics 365 AI Training for Employees?
As mentioned, Microsoft Dynamics 365 features AI capabilities to help businesses work smarter and make faster, data-informed decisions.
Without proper training, achieving these goals is challenging.
Let’s discuss some key benefits you can reap from training your teams to use the platform effectively:
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- Smarter Workflows and Decision-Making: Dynamics 365 offers a CRM suite that integrates AI into daily processes, including customer insights. When your team understands how to use these tools, they can automate workflows, focus on high-value tasks, and make better decisions.
- Productivity and Efficiency Gains: Adopting AI can increase your team’s productivity through speeding up data analysis, simplifying approvals, and reducing manual data entry. According to an i4cp study, companies that combine AI adoption with sufficient workforce training believe they could boost productivity by over 30%.
- Empowered, AI-Literate Employees: Employees who have received structured AI training gain confidence to use AI features effectively and creatively. Generally, trained users are two to three times more likely to adopt AI tools consistently, helping your businesses get more value from their technology stack.
- Better ROI From Digital Transformation: AI fluency helps your employees turn your technology investments into measurable results. Your employees can make better use of automation and predictive insights in Dynamics 365, resulting in faster, more effective speed-to-value from the investment.
How to Identify The Right AI Skills For Teams
Before you design any AI employee training program, you need to know what skills your teams already have and where the biggest gaps are.
A focused skills assessment can help you deliver real impact with your training efforts.
Here’s how to go about it:
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- Assess Current Skill Levels: Start with practical assessments or surveys to gauge your employees’ understanding of AI concepts and tools. You can also analyze your system usage data in Dynamics 365 to see which features they don’t use often. With this backdrop, you’ll be able to pinpoint who needs foundational training and who needs advanced guidance.
- Map Dynamics 365 AI Capabilities to Job Roles: List all the AI-driven features in Dynamics 365 that are relevant to your organization and link them to the appropriate departments or roles. These can include Dynamics 365 Copilot, workflow automation, and predictive insights. For example, your sales team can use Copilot for forecasting, while the operations team can benefit from automation to streamline approvals.
- Prioritize Core AI Competencies: Focus on essential AI skills that boost adoption and productivity, including data literacy, generative AI conversation engineering, and process automation awareness.
- Align Training Goals with Business Needs: You’ll want to collaborate with department heads to connect skill development with your strategic goals and ensure training directly translates into business value. For instance, if you are looking to improve customer engagement and retention, you can prioritize AI tools in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights that personalize customer experiences and predict churn.
How to Build an Effective Dynamics 365 AI Training Program
Once you’ve identified the right AI skills for your team, the next step is to build an artificial intelligence training program that develops those capabilities in a structured and practical way.
Here are handy steps to creating a well-designed Dynamics 365 AI training system that keeps learning enjoyable, relevant, and measurable:
1. Start with Role-Based Learning Paths
Tailor each training path to specific roles and use cases within Dynamics 365.
For example, your sales representatives can learn how to use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales to forecast scenarios and prioritize leads.
Your customer service agents can focus on AI-driven sentiment analysis, transcriptions, and case routing in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
With role-based learning, every session will feel relevant to each employee’s daily work.
2. Combine Theory with Hands-On Practice
You’ll need to balance AI fundamentals with practical Dynamics 365 exercises.
Begin with theory topics such as machine learning basics, prompt engineering principles, and data ethics. You can reinforce these through tasks such as building an AI-powered sales forecast or creating a custom Copilot prompt.
Combining theory with practical tasks will help your employees understand both how AI works and how to use it effectively.
3. Use Real-World Data Scenarios
Provide your employees with real or simulated company data to put their learning into practical use.
If you have a data set of 5,000 customer records, it can help your employees learn the ropes of predicting churn or identifying upsell opportunities.
4. Use Flexible Learning Formats
You’ll need to combine different education formats to accommodate your employees’ various learning styles and schedules.
You can try microlearning modules, featuring short videos for quick tips, or interactive workshops for in-depth exploration of AI workflows.
You can also try Microsoft’s certification programs or specialized Microsoft partner training options. We’ll discuss more about specialized partner training shortly.
5. Integrate Training into Your Existing Systems
Embed AI training into your company’s Learning and Development (L&D) and onboarding platforms.
You can include AI onboarding modules for new hires in Dynamics 365 roles.
Alternatively, connect your Microsoft partner training programs to your internal Learning Management System to track progress automatically.
Special Note: Creating your own internal Dynamics 365 AI training can be time-consuming and expensive, so it’s better to use a ready-made solution.
Microsoft’s training systems, such as Microsoft Learn and Guided Tour, are free and self-paced. However, they aren’t tailored to your specific business needs.
Instead, you can use the services of a specialized training partner for more structured, in-depth training.
At Coffee + Dunn, our Microsoft Dynamics 365 training system eliminates the need for you to create your own training.
We offer both basic training modules and Dunn Right Managed Services to ensure a variety of training formats.
The modules comprise simple courses that help your employees understand and apply crucial Dynamics 365 capabilities on Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and Dynamics 365 Sales.
Dunn Right Managed Services offers customized training for various business-specific scenarios, tailored to how your organization typically operates.
The training is tailored to specific workflows and user roles to speed up adoption and boost productivity.
Our exclusive Knowledge Hub is also useful for businesses seeking on-demand training through self-paced learning videos, one-on-one expert-led discussions, live webinars, and scenario-based learning paths.
Get exclusive access to our Knowledge Hub today for personalized Dynamics 365 training.
Best Practices For Dynamics 365 Employee AI Training
An AI-ready workforce isn’t just about courses. It’s about having a culture that promotes learning, experimentation, and ongoing improvement.
The best practices below can help your Dynamics 365 training program stay effective and sustainable in the long run:
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- Foster Experimentation and Continuous Learning: It’s best to encourage your employees to test new AI tools in Dynamics 365 without fear of making mistakes. With more testing, you are likely to generate faster innovation cycles. You can promote this mindset by allowing your employees to thrive in a sandbox environment where they can explore AI features safely and keep learning.
- Encourage Collaboration and Peer-Led Learning: You can create opportunities for your teams to share tips, insights, and success stories. AI knowledge circles or peer-led sessions help employees learn faster and build confidence sooner.
- Keep Training Content Updated: Since AI capabilities in Dynamics 365 evolve constantly, you must review and refresh your training materials every quarter to include new tools like Copilot updates. Doing this ensures your teams always learn the most relevant and current skills.
Note: If you use a certified Microsoft specialized partner training program, you don’t have to update the material yourself. For instance, our ongoing training helps your teams leverage new Dynamics 365 features as they roll out.
- Recognize and Reward Early Adopters: Celebrating employees who actively use and promote AI features across departments can motivate others to do the same. You can highlight their efforts or results in company meetings or internal newsletters. Small rewards, such as certificates and digital badges, also work wonders.
- Provide Ongoing Support and Mentorship: It’s easy to sustain the momentum of learning activities if you have structured support systems such as internal help desks, community channels, or AI mentors. Your employees will be able to troubleshoot issues better and share real-time feedback while enjoying continuous support that prevents skill decay over time.
How to Measure the Success of AI Training Programs
To ensure your AI training efforts deliver real business value, you need ways to track both learning progress and performance outcomes.
Clear measurement based on the following aspects helps you refine your approach and prove ROI to top leadership:
1. Track Predefined Key Learning Metrics
Start by monitoring course completion rates, engagement scores, and skill assessment results to see how your employees are progressing.
Aim for at least 80% course completion and persistent improvement in your workers’ post-training test scores.
2. Evaluate Performance Impact
Next, assess how training affects your daily work outcomes in terms of accuracy, workflow efficiency, and productivity.
Your trained employees should be able to complete Dynamics 365 activities faster when using AI features like Copilot.
The number of manual errors should also decrease, freeing up your employees’ time for strategic work.
3. Gather Employee Feedback and Confidence Levels
Collect post-training surveys to measure the confidence and perceived skill growth. A simple 1-5 rating scale will suffice, with questions such as “How confident are you using AI in Microsoft Dynamics 365?”
A confidence boost of 20% or more can indicate your training engagement is strong and that the employees are ready to apply new skills.
4. Link Training Outcomes to Business Results
Connect learning data to measurable key performance indicators (KPIs), such as higher customer satisfaction scores, lower operational costs, or higher sales conversion rates.
If you can align your AI training with Dynamics 365 CRM implementation, you can start seeing growth across sales, customer service, and marketing in a few months.
Achieving your KPIs turns training from a cost center into a measurable business driver, which can motivate you to continue adopting new AI features and combining them with proper training.
Common Challenges in Dynamics 365 AI Training and How to Overcome Them
Even when you apply best practices, it’s easy to get derailed by roadblocks.
You’ll want to watch out for and plan for the following challenges to ensure your Dynamics 365 rollout succeeds across teams and departments:
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- Resistance to Change: Your employees might hesitate to trust AI tools, especially if they fear automation could replace their roles. You can apply change management best practices to curb this. You should communicate the purpose of AI clearly, emphasize how it will support your employees rather than replace them, or share success stories from early adopters.
- Knowledge Gaps: Since not everyone starts with the same understanding of AI or data concepts, having foundational learning modules helps level the playing field. Start with topics like AI basics, ethical use, and data privacy before moving to applied sessions on predictive analytics or Copilot.
- Time Constraints: It’s often hard for busy teams to devote long hours to learning, so you need to deliver content through microlearning modules. Bite-sized learning can increase knowledge retention compared to traditional long-form sessions, making it easier for your employees to remain consistent.
- Low Engagement: Employees stop participating quickly in training if it feels static or generic. Ensure you keep them engaged with interactive quizzes or modules and gamified elements such as leaderboards. Gamification can increase course completion rates and turn training into a motivating and rewarding experience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Still have practical questions about how to get started or what results to expect?
We’ve got answers to common questions organizations often ask about Dynamics 365 AI corporate training:
What is the Best Way to Introduce Dynamics 365 AI Training to Employees?
The best way to introduce Dynamics 365 AI training to employees is to start with short awareness sessions and simple, high-impact use cases that show quick wins.
For example, you can show how it’s possible to save time and reduce manual work by automating tasks with Copilot.
How Long Does It Take to See Results From AI Training?
Most organizations start seeing improved adoption and increased efficiency within 2-3 months of AI training, depending on how customized and consistent the training program is.
How Does AI Training Improve Productivity in Dynamics 365?
Training helps employees use AI tools more effectively, which leads to faster data insights, reduced manual workload, and more intelligent, data-informed decisions across departments.
The Best Way Forward
Without a doubt, AI training for employees can help you unlock the full potential of Microsoft Dynamics 365 to deliver business value faster.
When your employees understand how to use AI confidently and creatively, your business experiences wins in speed, accuracy, and greater competitive advantage in your niche.
At Coffee + Dunn, we save you from all the trouble of having to create and deliver your own training programs.
You can bank on our three training systems, including basic course modules, Dunn Right Managed Services, and an exclusive Knowledge Hub.
Our training programs are rich in both foundational and advanced learning materials and formats, designed to meet your employees where they are on their AI learning journey.
What’s more? With our ongoing support, your team can learn about new Dynamics 365 AI features as they roll out, helping them stay ahead of the competition.
Schedule a discovery session with us today to get started with a customized Dynamics 365 AI training program that aligns with your business needs and goals.
