What is Holding you back from Using AI Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central — and the Top Five Things Smart Partners Do to Help
AI adoption inside your ERP systems should feel like a breakthrough — less admin, better forecasting, faster decisions. Yet for many customers, AI Copilot still sits on the runway, with organisations hesitant to take off.
Our internal insights from customer communications and experience implementing platforms highlight clear patterns: the same fears show up again and again, and they are completely solvable with the right partner guidance.
What is the "Waiting Tax" costing you? Jump to the bottom of this blog.
In this article, we unpack the top fears holding customers back and the five things the smartest Partners do to accelerate safe, confident Copilot adoption.
The Real Fears Holding Customers Back
Q- We’re running an old version — will Copilot even work? Many customers are still on older NAV/BC versions or on‑prem environments that don’t receive automatic updates, leaving them unsure whether Copilot is compatible.
Q - If we automate everything, won’t people lose their jobs? A recurring fear is that AI will replace people instead of empowering them. Cultural resistance often appears long before any technical resistance.
Q - Our contracted staff bill by the hour — they aren’t motivated to work faster. This is a surprisingly practical barrier: if success metrics reward time spent rather than outcomes, automation looks like a threat rather than an advantage no mater what form it takes.
Q - Our data is inconsistent — won’t AI give the wrong answers? Customers worry (correctly) that if their emails, documents, or master data are inconsistent, Copilot may generate incorrect recommendations. Our internal email threads are great examples such as outdated documents, incorrect emails, and inconsistent agreements being fed into AI and the ERP — leading to unreliable AI outcomes.
Q - AI still feels like a black box — what if it gets it wrong? This emotional barrier is real. Neural Impact’s research, a close partner of ours, highlights fear around job loss, bias, security, cost, and uncertainty. Customers don’t just fear AI. They fear poor outcomes, loss of trust, and systems they don’t fully understand.
The Top Five Things Smart Partners Do to Remove These Fears
Based on my experience and best‑practice research, here are the strategies the most effective Partners, like erp365 Limited, use to help:
1. Start With a Clean‑Data Foundation
Partners who drive successful AI adoption begin by fixing inconsistent or outdated data — eliminating “garbage in, garbage out” outcomes.
This includes:
- Deduplication
- Updating contracts and agreements
- Validating document accuracy
- Aligning email and communication flows
- Governing what data AI can see and the prioritisation model
When data is clean and priorities, AI output becomes trustworthy — and customer confidence grows.
2. Run a Safe, Low‑Risk Pilot to Build Trust
Fear decreases dramatically when customers can “try without risk.”
Smart Partners:
- Run Copilot pilots in a controlled sandbox,
- Target high return productivity gains or value addition propositions
- Demonstrate value through real customer scenarios, and
- Use risk‑reduction strategies such as guided testing.
Neural Impact, a global specialist in this space that we work closely with, highlights the power of pilots and proof‑of‑value steps to reduce emotional fear and complexity.
3. Address the Human Side Early — Not Just the Technology
Global research on this makes a clear point: resistance is often cultural, not technical.
Smart Partners:
- Educate executives and staff on how Copilot supports, not replaces, their work,
- Reframe automation as a productivity and work‑life‑balance win, and
- Showcase real examples of progressive company cultures achieving strong results.
4. Modernise the Platform Before Adding AI
If a customer is on‑prem or outdated, Copilot adoption becomes unnecessarily hard.
Smart Partners:
- Help customers transition to supported, cloud‑based versions,
- Ensure automatic updates are enabled,
- Verify infrastructure readiness before enabling AI features.
This prevents turbulence later — and aligns customers with Microsoft’s continuously improving AI capabilities. Refer to my earlier blog and podcast on the “Costs of outdated ERP software and why your competitors love it.” See Blog or Podcast
5. Provide Governance, Guardrails, and Ongoing Optimisation
Partners who succeed don’t view Copilot as a one‑time install — they treat it as a journey.
The smartest Partners offer:
- Prompt governance and meta prompt tuning,
- Security and privacy reinforcement,
- KPI measurement and telemetry review,
- Structured user feedback loops.
This aligns with Microsoft’s own AI governance tools and best practices around transparency and continuous improvement.
Conclusion: AI Copilot Adoption Isn’t a Technology Problem — It’s a Confidence Problem
Our internal communications and customer feedback show it clearly: Customers aren’t afraid of Copilot. They’re afraid of uncertainty.
Smart Partners counter those fears by:
- Modernising platforms,
- Cleaning data,
- Guiding culture change,
- Proving value early, and
- Embedding safe, responsible AI practices.
With the right Partner approach, AI Copilot in Business Central becomes what it was always meant to be — a strategic co‑pilot that helps people work smarter, faster, and with far less stress.
What is the "Waiting Tax" costing you?
• The Data Debt: For every month your data remains uncleaned and siloed, the "cleanup" bill grows. Microsoft recently saw $500M in annual savings simply by addressing data hygiene—savings that were impossible on legacy foundations.
• The Talent Drain: Companies like TAL Insurance are already saving 6 hours per employee, per week. If your team is still manually summarizing reports or chasing engineering data, they are spending 15% of their week on tasks your competitors have already automated.
• The Decision Lag: While Copilot users are getting instant customer summaries and late-payment predictions to stabilise cash flow, manual environments are still looking in the rearview mirror.
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