Microsoft Teases Dynamics 365 Activate Expansion, Targets Contact Centers

In September 2026, Microsoft announced Dynamics 365 Activate.

Essentially, it’s a migration tool that uses AI agents to map out the current software estate, design future workflows, and build a migration success plan. 

The initial focus is CRM, centering on Salesforce migrations to Dynamics 365 and Copilot.

Despite only being available in public preview today, the solution is already seeing “strong” demand, according to Bryan Goode, Corporate VP of Business Applications and Agents at Microsoft.

Now, Microsoft intends to broaden the scope. 

“We are planning to expand the tool to other workloads… Think about the areas (like) finance, operations, supply chain, and, certainly, contact centers. Customers want to move to this new environment, and we're going to help them do that.”

Bryan Goode

Corporate VP of Business Applications and Agents at Microsoft

“You should stay tuned for more at our Ignite conference in November,” concluded Goode. 

Why Might Microsoft Be Targeting Contact Center Migrations? 

Microsoft isn’t just targeting the contact center. Yet, it recognizes that the market offers fertile ground for its Dynamics 365 Contact Center solution. 

After all, many customer support operations still run on-premise, with 2026 set to be the first year that global cloud agent licenses outnumber on-premise licenses, according to Gartner estimates.

Typically, those that remain are larger enterprises, wary of the lift-and-shift still required to migrate and have stayed put. 

That’s exactly the type of effort Microsoft could cut through by expanding Activate. 

Moreover, many contact centers appear unhappy with their current cloud offerings.

Take recent Metrigy research. It found that only 31.5% of organizations using CCaaS have no plans to replace their primary provider. That leaves 68.5% considering their options. 

The research firm suggests the primary driver for those looking elsewhere is shifting to an integrated UCaaS and CCaaS proposition, which Microsoft happens to offer. 

As such, AI-powered migration solutions, like Activate, may offer significant value as both on-premise and cloud contact centers evolve.

Yet, beyond Activate, Microsoft is going further to target the former… 

Microsoft Is Also Bringing Innovation to Legacy Contact Centers

Tools like the future Activate may lower the lift of a migration. Yet, right now, many contact centers are prioritizing fast AI innovation ahead of a cloud transformation. 

“When I speak to customers, they tell me that the contact center is ground zero for AI. They want to understand how they can improve their contact center operations using AI and agents as quickly as possible.”

Bryan Goode

Corporate VP of Business Applications and Agents at Microsoft

“However, many of them simply don't have the appetite or the time to undertake a complete replacement of their contact center infrastructure.”

Ultimately, that’s why Microsoft launched Contact Center Intelligence (CCI) in October 2026.

Essentially, this bundles AI agents and other capabilities that contact centers can layer onto their existing infrastructure and, in Goode’s words, “generate value relatively quickly.”

These agents can interact with customers autonomously, automate quality assurance (QA) processes, and monitor systems. 

Meanwhile, additional features include voice biometric authentication and agent governance through Agent 365, with more capabilities coming soon. 

Interestingly, CCI also works with Microsoft’s broader IQ platform, its universal context layer for enterprise AI. 

“It can take context from a particular customer, case, or incident and combine it with other relevant information from across the company through Microsoft IQ,” explained Goode.

That leads to Microsoft’s broader vision for the future of work and customer experience...

Microsoft’s Broader Vision for the Future of Work and Customer Experience

Employees have to navigate many systems to get work done. For instance, contact center agents still use an average of nine applications to do their jobs. 

Yet, it’s not only contact center staff. Everyone in the business must continuously switch between systems, with the average information worker moving from one application to another around 1,200 times a day. Over the course of a week, that’s four hours.

Per Microsoft, rather than making people switch applications, those applications should bring their capabilities and information to the person, wherever they're already working.

Some vendors call this “headless.” Yet, Microsoft doesn’t use that term. It wants Copilot to be the head, acting as the central interface for employees to receive information from the application ecosystem and take actions across it. 

Consider sales, service, and marketing teams. Much of the information they need isn’t contained in the CRM. It’s scattered across various other tools.

“When you bring all of that together, we call it Microsoft IQ,” asserted Goode. “It allows us to deliver a powerful AI experience that I don't think others can match.”

All Eyes on Microsoft Ignite 2026

It’s easy to see the value in an enterprise context layer for CX teams and beyond. 

Yet, organizations must make significant strides as they transition from where they are today to a new way of working.

“We want to create the tools that help them make that transition,” summarized Goode. 

Dynamics 365 Activate is an excellent example, with the potential to soon expand beyond the CRM into the broader enterprise ecosystem, including the contact center. 

With that, all eyes are on Ignite 2026, which kicks off on November 17, 2026.