SoftTech AI Registry
Microsoft · Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Next Best Actions

Analyses case context and recommends next steps to a service representative in the Copilot pane, such as reviewing a generated email response, following up with the customer, reusing content or resolving the case.

Recorded characteristics

Function
Extends intent-based suggestions into the case workflow. After a case is created or updated, the agent analyses the case context, maps the issue to available intents and recommends next steps in the Copilot pane. Documented recommendations include reviewing a draft email response generated for the customer and refining it before sending, following up with the customer to gather or confirm details, copying the generated response, and resolving the case. Microsoft describes the service representative viewing and selecting these actions.
Data access
Microsoft documents the agent analysing case data such as emails and notes, together with case context and the organisation's intent library derived from historical support interactions. Related intent-based suggestions analyse live chat and call conversation content, and knowledge sources are queried when a solution is requested. No wider data access is documented for this capability.
Actions
Generative only
External actions
Unknown
Human confirmation
Required
Permission basis
Not established
Administrative control
An administrator turns on intent-based suggestions in the Copilot Service admin center (Support experience > Productivity > Intent-based suggestions), selects the Actions option to enable next best actions for cases such as drafting emails or resolving the case, and enables it in selected representative experience profiles. Prerequisites include intent or knowledge management configuration and the Ask a question feature in the Copilot help pane. Customer Intent Agent is separately turned on in the admin center.
Default state
Disabled
Availability
Microsoft's 2026 release wave 1 feature page "View next best actions with Customer Intent Agent" records public preview in August 2026 and general availability on 19 August 2026, enabled for users by admins, makers or analysts. Current Microsoft Learn how-to and administration articles for intent-based suggestions and next best actions (Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Dynamics 365 Customer Service) carry no preview or prerelease label; the use article is dated 1 June 2026 and the enablement article 27 August 2026. Microsoft states release plans will no longer be published from September 2026 and that existing release plans remain available for historical reference.
Licensing
Microsoft documents a pay-as-you-go plan as a prerequisite for Customer Intent Agent, and the Intent Manager and CSR Manager roles for managing intents. Administrator setup requires the System Administrator role. No further licensing detail for next best actions is established in the reviewed documentation.
External model or provider
Not established. Microsoft describes generative AI and Copilot in Customer Service being powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot, but no specific model or provider is documented for this capability.
Limitations and uncertainty
The runtime permission basis for the recommended actions is not established: Microsoft's reviewed documentation does not map next best actions to specific Dataverse privileges, and no Customer Service Copilot tool privilege reference page could be located. Whether any action can affect systems outside Dynamics 365 is not established. The documented action set is limited to the examples listed by Microsoft; behaviour of other Dynamics 365 agents is not attributed to this capability. Re-verified 18 September 2026 against current Microsoft documentation. The documented action set in current Microsoft Learn how-to documentation remains: review the email response generated for the customer and refine it before sending, follow up with the customer to gather or confirm additional details, copy the generated response, and resolve the case. Microsoft's release-plan business-value text additionally says actions "include, but aren't limited to, drafting emails, updating knowledge articles, updating case notes, and more", but no current Microsoft documentation identifies the object affected, whether an article draft, version or publication state changes, whether a case note, annotation or timeline entry is written, or whether the AI persists any of these after the representative selects the action; these remain not established. Microsoft's statement that case attributes are "consolidated in one place" is presentation of gathered information and is not documented as writing values into case fields. The one-click phrasing is not treated as evidence of a persistent write. The Responsible AI FAQ attributes enterprise-function invocation to Customer Intent Agent leading chat and voice conversations, not to the case next best actions surface, and no delegation from next best actions to Case Management Agent is documented; Case Management Agent authority is not attributed here. No model or provider is identified for this capability, and no AI-specific audit trail for recommendations presented, selected or executed is documented.

Evidence

Separate paid assessment · Operational Clarity

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