Copilot vs. AI Agents for Dynamics 365: What’s Best for Customer Engagement? (Pt. 1)

Is it a Copilot? An agent? Both? Choosing between Copilot features and AI agents can feel tricky when you’re focused on your pipeline, but we’re here to help. In this series, we’ll unpack the differences and share practical use cases for sales and marketing to help you decide which approach fits your needs. We’ll also cover why your strategy matters more than the tool you choose.

Part One: What, exactly, is Copilot vs. an AI agent?

This is your Dynamics 365 Copilot speaking

Copilot refers to embedded AI features that assist humans in the flow of work. It works as your AI teammate inside apps like Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Insights, and Customer Service. Copilot suggests, summarizes, drafts, and answers questions using context from the record you’re viewing, your CRM data, and can use connected sources like emails or Teams or public sources, such as external websites.

Core elements of Copilot:

• • In the driver’s seat: Copilot proposes; you approve or edit as needed.
  • Meets you where you’re at: No need to leave the app; Copilot works directly on leads, opportunities, cases, or emails.
  • Faster to finish: Use Copilot to draft emails, summarize meetings, suggest next best actions, and build segments with natural language.
  • Low setup time: Typically available out of the box (sometimes with limited configuration/setup) in lieu of requiring custom development.

Examples in customer engagement:

• • Sales: Generate personalized communication based on an opportunity’s history and recent emails. Summarize a long thread before your next follow-up call with a prospect or customer.
  • Customer Service: Draft case responses, summarize a case timeline, suggest knowledge articles for agents.
  • Customer Insights: Suggest content variations, build journeys using natural language, predict customer behavior based on factors like lifetime value, churn risk, and sentiment

Use Copilot when:

• • You want to speed up work for your sales reps and marketers without changing core processes.
  • You need quick wins in productivity and quality of output (e.g., better email drafts, faster research).
  • You’re looking for guidance and suggestions instead of autonomous decision-making.

What is an AI Agent?

AI agents can perceive context, reason about goals, take actions across tools, and learn from outcomes, often with minimal human oversight. In Dynamics 365 customer engagement, an AI agent can:

• • Coordinate complex workflows across Dynamics 365 CE apps.
  • Prioritize leads based on your ICP and recent engagement, as with the Sales Qualification Agent in Dynamics 365 Sales
  • Use rules to engage with customers via chat, email, or voice (sometimes autonomously)
  • Work with other agents (e.g., a product recommendation agent handing off to a qualification agent).

Core elements of agents: 

• • “I’ll take it from here”: Can run 24/7 to execute tasks, not just suggestions.
  • Multi-system action: Reads from and writes to your CRM, marketing automation, customer service, and data platforms.
  • Policy makes perfect: Requires guardrails, approval thresholds, and compliance checks.
  • Lifecycle management: Needs monitoring, versioning, and continuous improvement.

Examples in customer engagement:

• • Sales qualification: Monitors inbound leads, enriches data, prioritizes via email or chat, books meetings for BDMs, and updates records in Dynamics 365.
  • Renewal and expansion: Tracks contract dates, usage patterns, and risk signals, and sends personalized outreach for optimal .
  • Service triage agent: Classifies new cases, gathers missing info, proposes resolutions, and routes intelligently. Can resolve simple issues fully via chat.
  • Marketing activation: Listens for high-intent signals (e.g., pricing page visits) and triggers a personalized, multi-touch journey across email, SMS, and other channels.

When to use it:

• • You need to automate repeatable, outcome-driven processes end-to-end.
  • Volume is high and speed matters (e.g., lead routing, ticket triage, outbound follow-up).
  • You have defined rules, clear KPIs, and access to reliable data across systems.
  • You can invest in governance, monitoring, and iterative improvement.

Copilot vs. AI Agent: Key Differences

In the next part of our series, we’ll cover typical use cases and what to consider when choosing the right option for your business.