Partner Blog | From Copilot adoption to agent-powered growth
A successful Copilot trial opens the door to a much bigger customer conversation and a bigger role for partners. Once users experience the value of AI in their daily work, partners can guide customers to extend that value across teams, workflows, and business processes while maintaining the security, governance, and cost controls needed to scale. In my recent post, From AI curiosity to Copilot adoption in 30 Days, I introduced how Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) partners can use a guided, 25-user trial to bring Microsoft 365 Copilot Business to small and medium-sized business (SMB) customers. That initial experience creates momentum, but sustaining it requires a structured approach to adoption, governance, and expansion. The opportunity is growing with the new Copilot, which brings Home, Code, and Autopilot together in one connected experience. Combined with a commercial model that supports subscriptions and usage-based billing, these advances create new ways for customers to move from AI assistance to delegated work and agent-powered business processes. For partners, this expands opportunities across the customer lifecycle, from guiding adoption and securing environments to developing agents, managing AI consumption, and delivering ongoing services. The key is connecting these capabilities into a repeatable practice that evolves alongside customer needs. Build on the momentum of Copilot in 30 The first 30 days give customers a practical foundation for working with AI. Through Copilot in 30, users explore how Microsoft 365 Copilot Business can improve everyday productivity across Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint before progressing to agents and more advanced scenarios. The Copilot Success Planner gives partners a structured way to guide this experience. It creates personalized learning plans for the 25 trial users, along with a roadmap for the customer sponsor. The guided journey builds skills progressively. If the sponsor enables Copilot Cowork, Weeks 3 and 4 add Cowork prompts that introduce the possibilities of delegated work. At the end of the trial, partners can use the sponsor's Day 30 value readout to identify where Copilot delivered results, which users and teams are ready to expand, and where additional capabilities could create business value. That conversation now has a broader destination. With the new Copilot, customers can move through connected experiences: Home brings Chat, Copilot Cowork, and Office together, so users can ask questions, create content, and delegate more complex work. Code extends AI-powered solution development, so users can turn natural-language ideas into apps, dashboards, automations, and workflows. Autopilot introduces a persistent, proactive personal agent designed to keep work moving within organizational permissions. Home and Code are rolling out through the Frontier program, and Autopilot is in private preview. They expand what customers can explore as their AI maturity grows, building on the foundation of everyday Copilot adoption. For partners, the next step is to turn early success into a longer-term customer roadmap. The Microsoft 365 Copilot + Agents SMB Guided Experience (download kit) provides a ready-to-deliver, 90-minute engagement to reinforce value, explore new scenarios, and guide the transition toward broader adoption. Continue reading here
Toll-free numbers for Microsoft Teams now supported on NCE
We have exciting news! The New Commerce Experience (NCE) now supports the ability to acquire toll-free numbers for Microsoft Teams. Previously, customers would need to subscribe to Communication Credits to be able to acquire toll-free numbers for Audio Conferencing, auto attendant and call queue capabilities available with Microsoft Teams Phone. The requirement for Communication Credits had blocked customers on NCE from acquiring toll-free numbers. Please see the following guidance on how to acquire toll-free numbers on NCE. For customers who are moving from legacy (Communication Credits) to NCE or have already moved from legacy to NCE, partners will need to follow the steps below to ensure pay-as-you-go for toll-free numbers is set up correctly: Confirm that pay-as-you-go has been set up for the customer’s subscription: New commerce telco pay-as-you-go - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn Buy a pay-as-you-go calling plan for your Microsoft Teams subscription | Microsoft Learn Disable “Auto-recharge” for Communication Credits (if currently or previously on legacy) If the Communications Credit balance is zero, and telco pay-as-you-go has been configured for the customer by the CSP, then the commerce system will automatically move the customer to postpaid and the new meter will be validated. If the customer has a positive balance for Communications Credits, the commerce tool will be able to automatically identify this, and the remaining Communication Credits will be used for billing until the remaining balance is drained. Important note: Most customers have the “Auto-recharge” flag enabled within their account which will automatically refill their Communications Credit balance to whatever threshold level they configured it. You will need to disable this option if they wish to utilize the consumption meter; otherwise, the Communications Credit balance will indefinitely refill itself and the commerce system won't switch to the post-pay mechanism. See screenshots below for how to disable Auto-recharge. Resources New commerce telco pay-as-you-go - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn Buy a pay-as-you-go calling plan for your Microsoft Teams subscription | Microsoft Learn\ Read the Partner Center Announcement here: https://learn.microsoft.com/partner-center/announcements/2024-february#toll-free-numbers-for-microsoft-teams-now-supported-on-nceRegister for the next CSP Partner Technical Training!
The CSP Technical Training is designed to assist CSP Partners with technical implementation of change. Partners can expect to learn more about how to implement changes, get answers to technical questions and learn more API changes available in sandbox.
