What Can Copilot and AI Agents Do in Business Central?

AI in Business Central now comes in two forms: Copilot features that help people work faster, and agents that take whole tasks off their plate. They work differently, they are paid for differently, and they need different preparation.

This guide explains what each one does in 2026, what the agents really cost, and how to switch them on without losing control of your books. All credit rates and prices below come from Microsoft's published documentation and roadmap as of October 2026.

What Is the Difference Between Copilot and AI Agents in Business Central?

A copilot assists a person who is already working. An agent carries out a task on its own and hands the result back for review. Both run on Azure OpenAI Service, hosted and operated by Microsoft.

Copilot is the natural starting point because it costs nothing extra. Agents can save more time on high-volume, repetitive work, but they need budget, setup and supervision.

Which Copilot Features Are Included in Business Central?

Microsoft currently lists these Copilot experiences in Business Central:

Chat with Copilot can also explain how to complete a task, drawing on Microsoft's documentation. Each feature is switched on or off by an administrator, so you can roll them out by team.

What Does the Sales Order Agent Do?

The Sales Order Agent turns customer emails into sales documents. It identifies the customer, finds the requested items, checks availability and drafts a quote using your own prices and discounts. It can read order details from attached PDFs and images. Once the customer approves, it converts the quote into an order.

Administrators choose which steps need a person's sign-off, such as quotes, orders or outgoing emails.

What Does the Payables Agent Do?

The Payables Agent reads vendor invoices that arrive as PDF attachments in a monitored mailbox. It creates a purchase invoice draft and completes the line details by matching them with your purchasing history.

Nothing becomes a purchase invoice until a supervisor reviews the draft and corrects any field that needs it. In trial mode, the first 50 invoices are processed free of charge, so you can test it on real vendor invoices.

What Is the Expense Agent?

The Expense Agent, still a production-ready preview, automates employee expenses. Staff send receipts through a web app or by email, and the agent extracts the details, categorizes each expense and groups expenses into reports. It comes with a new expense module for per diem, mileage, approvals and reimbursement.

Without the agent, expense reports can still be entered manually. Licensing depends on the role:

• Receipt submitters using only the web app or email need no Business Central license; each receipt is charged in Copilot Credits
• Approvers and anyone working inside Business Central need at least a Team Members license
• Posting and payment require an Essentials or Premium license

Can You Build Your Own Business Central Agents?

Yes, but it's early. Microsoft's agent designer has been in public preview since early 2026, with general availability planned for late 2026. Custom agents will be billed in Copilot Credits at rates Microsoft hasn't published yet.

For processes that span several systems, Copilot Studio can build agents that use Business Central data, and partners can add AI features to their own extensions with Microsoft's developer tools. Prove value with the built-in agents first.

Learn more about the how does a Business central implementation work?

Which Teams Benefit Most From AI in Business Central?

Map each feature to the people who will use it, so training stays focused:

Start with one team and two or three features, so adoption and time savings are easy to measure.

How Much Do Business Central AI Agents Cost?

Agents are billed in Copilot Credits. Microsoft publishes the rate for each step in its billing documentation, last updated in July 2026:

On Microsoft's pay-as-you-go meter, a Copilot Credit costs $0.01. Applied to Microsoft's two billing examples, plus one expense example of our own, that works out to:

• Sales Order Agent: 100 requests a month, half with attachments, uses 1,650 credits, about $16.50.
• Payables Agent: 100 invoices of three lines each uses 6,500 credits, about $65.
• Expense Agent: 200 receipts uses 10,000 credits, about $100.

You can also prepay through Copilot Credit packs, which are used before pay-as-you-go. Prepaid capacity is shared with other Microsoft services on your tenant, and if all available capacity is used up, agents stop until more is added. Microsoft also offers Copilot Credit Commit Units, bought upfront, which it says save up to 20%.

Some work costs nothing. Copilot features use no credits, the Payables Agent ignores emails without a valid invoice, and the Sales Order Agent filters out irrelevant messages, such as marketing emails, before processing them.

To forecast your own bill, multiply your monthly volumes by these rates. For the Payables Agent, that is invoices × (50 + 5 × average lines). Microsoft's Agent usage estimator can model the rest.

What Do You Need Before Turning On AI in Business Central?

Check these before your first agent goes live:

• Business Central online. Copilot and agents aren't available on-premises.
• Features enabled. An administrator switches capabilities on in the Copilot & agent capabilities page and, depending on where your environment is hosted, may need to allow data movement across geographies.
• Billing in place. Agents need a billing model in the Business Central admin center. Pay-as-you-go requires an Azure subscription linked through a Power Platform environment.
• A mailbox. The Sales Order and Payables agents each need a Microsoft 365 mailbox to monitor.
• Permissions. Setting up an agent requires agent permissions such as Configure All Agents, and you choose which users can work with it.
• Licensed users. People who supervise agents or use Copilot inside Business Central need a Business Central license; expense submitters using only the web app or email are the exception.
• Language and region. Check Microsoft's availability report for your country before you plan a rollout.

How Do You Keep AI Agents Under Control?

Agents act inside your financial system, so treat them like a new team member on probation:

• Keep review steps on. Require approval of quotes, orders, outgoing emails and invoice drafts until results are consistently right.
• Rely on existing security. Copilot can't get around Business Central's permissions, so users only see answers from data they can already access.
• Limit access. Agents are limited to the parts of Business Central their task requires, and you decide which people can supervise them.
• Audit every task. Each step an agent takes is logged, so you can see exactly what it changed and why.
• Watch consumption. Credit usage appears on each agent's configuration page and in the Power Platform admin center.
• Name an owner. One person should review agent results weekly and adjust instructions or setup data.

What Changed for AI in the 2026 Releases?

The 2026 releases moved Business Central further toward agents:

• Expense Agent (preview): version 28.1 introduced the agent alongside the new expense management module.
• Smarter invoice matching: the fall 2026 release improved how the Payables Agent matches invoice lines to purchase order lines, and Microsoft lists this as generally available.
• Several Sales Order Agents per company: each can have its own mailbox and settings, for example one per sales team or product line.
• Confidence levels for invoice drafts: the Payables Agent shows how confident it is in each change, so reviewers know where to look first.
• One task pane for all agents: a dedicated pane now lists every task created by agents.
• More expense controls (preview): the fall 2026 release also added VAT calculation and withholding tax for expense reports.

Microsoft labels the Expense Agent a production-ready preview, which means it can run in production under supplemental terms of use. Preview features can still change before general availability, so pilot them on non-critical processes first.

Learn more about the cost, features of business central

Where Should You Start With AI in Business Central?

A staged rollout keeps risk and cost low:

• Switch on the included Copilot features and show each team the two or three that fit its daily work
• Pick one agent for your highest-volume email-driven process, usually vendor invoices or customer orders
• Pilot with review steps on, using Payables Agent trial mode or a small group of customers
• Set a target and measure the results, such as invoices processed per week, and compare hours saved and error rates against credits consumed
• Expand gradually, relaxing review steps only where accuracy is proven

Clean master data makes every step easier. Agents match against your vendors, customers and items, so duplicates and gaps show up quickly.