How to Become a Frontier Firm with Microsoft’s Agentic Business Applications

What does it take to become, what Microsoft refers to as, a “Frontier Firm”? A Frontier Firm is a forward-thinking organisation that embeds AI deeply into core day-to-day work, enriching employee experiences, customer engagement, innovation and business processes.  

Beyond simply using AI tools, Frontier Firms empower people and intelligent agents to work together and do what they do best – automating routine tasks, surfacing insights and freeing teams to focus on decisions, relationships and outcomes that move their business forward. 

Microsoft has announced a new wave of agent-driven innovations to help more organisations move to the new Frontier. It’s a shift that can enable your business to work smarter and faster, without adding complexity.  

Uplift Sales with the Sales Development Agent 

Sales teams everywhere are tasked with growing pipelines, qualifying leads faster and personalising outreach. Microsoft’s Sales Development Agent is designed to support these goals.  

This agent is the next evolution in AI-powered selling. Available via the Frontier Program, it works alongside your sales team members to handle time-intensive tasks. 

How can this improve your sales function?  

Stronger pipeline momentum 

This agent can continuously research prospects, tailor outreach and automate follows up to prevent opportunities from stalling or slipping through the cracks. 

Built to scale with your team 

Operating independently, but collaboratively, the agent functions like a sales team member, handing qualified leads over to human sellers at the right moment. 

Enterprise-grade security and governance 

Developed through Microsoft’s trusted compliance framework, it operates within defined policies, permissions and access controls to protect your data and workflows. 

The Sales Development Agent integrates with leading CRM platforms like Dynamics 365 and Salesforce, and can work seamlessly with familiar tools like Outlook and Teams. 

Microsoft’s sales teams are already using the agent to modernise sales engagement, achieving a 15.1% uplift in lead-to-opportunity conversion rates. If your organisation is looking to unlock stronger sales capacity without compromising quality, this is a clear signal of what’s possible.  

Turn “Data Storage” into “Data Action” 

Most business platforms are designed to record information. Think: customer details, transactions, interactions, approvals. Frontier Firms expect more. They’re transforming platforms into responsive systems that can trigger workflows and support decisions in real time. 

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365, built on Copilot, intelligent agents and unified data, enables you to create a true “system of action” – one that connect insights with execution. Here’s how.  

A stronger foundation for agentic workflows 

Microsoft’s recent updates to Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform strengthen these capabilities.   

MCP servers act as secure, configurable connectors between your business data and the AI agents you build, using tools like Microsoft Copilot Studio. This means: 

• agents can access the right data, from the right system, at the right time 
• workflows span platforms  
• AI-driven actions remain governed, secure and auditable.   

By standardising how agents interact with business data, MCP creates a universal capabilities (not limited by platforms) for intelligent automation that can scale across your entire environment. 

Smarter Sales and Service Workflows with Dynamics 365 

For organisations using Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, MCP reduces friction between AI agents and the tools your teams rely on every day.  

Agents can now operate more naturally across workflows such as: 

• lead research, engagement and qualification 
• case handling, escalation and resolution. 

These recent integrations enable sales and service teams to move faster, without switching between systems or duplicating effort. 

Making ERP Data Useful in the Moment 

Most organisations store huge amounts of operational data in their ERP system for finance, inventory, purchasing or projects. The challenge is that this information often sits in the background, only accessible through reports or at a later date.  

The latest updates to Dynamics 365 changes this.  

AI agents can now securely access ERP functions and insights as work is happening, not days or weeks later.  

This means your organisation can respond to issues, opportunities or changes in real time – for example, to address cash flow pressures, supply constraints or operational bottlenecks. 

Essentially, this enables: 

• faster decisions based on live operational data 
• less manual reporting and fewer hand-offs between teams 
• greater confidence for your team, knowing insights are current and accurate.   

Importantly, this intelligence is delivered without compromising controls or compliance. Your finance and operations teams stay in control, even with these automated capabilities. 

Turn Everyday Business Apps into AI-Powered Helpers 

Many organisations use Power Apps to manage internal processes. Perhaps you’re currently using them for approvals, data capture, requests or workflows.  

Until now, these apps have largely relied on people to initiate actions. But with new agent capabilities, those same apps can now be triggered automatically by AI.  

Agents can submit forms, request approvals, retrieve information or move processes forward on your behalf. This can help your organisation: 

• create faster internal processes with fewer delays 
• reduce administrative load on teams 
• establish greater consistency in how tasks are completed 

Crucially, this doesn’t remove control. Business and IT teams decide what actions agents are allowed to access.

Get Answers from Your Data in Plain Language 

Instead of switching between systems or relying on complex searches, you can now ask questions in everyday language and receive clear, real-time answers based on business data. 

With Dataverse, you don’t need to know where information lives or how systems are structured. You can simply ask about what you need, and the system responds with accurate, up-to-date answers.   

Note: Behind the scenes, governance and permissions still apply, so people only see what they’re authorised to access. 

For business leaders, this can reduce dependency on specialists, speed up decision-making and make data more accessible across your organisation, without sacrificing control or accuracy. 

What this looks like in practice 

Organisations are already putting these capabilities to work.  

One financial operations platform, for example, has developed an agentic solution using Microsoft Foundry. Integrated with Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Teams, it streamlines employee expense management, reducing manual effort and maintaining financial controls. 

Become a Frontier Firm  

If you’re motivated to become a Frontier Firm, embed AI tools in a way that genuinely reduces friction, supports your people, enables innovation and helps your business become more productive and efficient.  

Agentic applications and AI-powered workflows don’t replace teams. But they are changing how works gets done.  

Determine the best opportunities for your organisation by understanding where intelligent automation can add the most value, and how to introduce it safely, responsibly and in line with your current systems. 

Start with the right use cases, implement strong governance and establish clear connections between technology and business outcomes. 

Interested to learn how agentic capabilities can support your business? ADITS can help you assess readiness, identify opportunities and align these technologies with your wider IT and security strategy. 

Find out more about our Microsoft services, or get in touch to discuss what these new capabilities could look like for your business.