Microsoft Phases Out Smart Assist: What This Means for Dynamics 365 Users

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Update

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service customers will lose access to Smart Assist before the end of 2025. Smart Assist currently offers a panel on the agent desktop with real-time contextual recommendations during customer conversations, using relevant knowledge articles and similar cases to guide agents.

However, Microsoft has decided to discontinue this feature in favor of its new tool, Copilot. In a recent blog post, Rushil Vora, Program Manager for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, stated:

"We recommend customer service organizations that are using Smart Assist capabilities turn on Copilot to enhance customer service rep productivity. We are continuously updating and enhancing Copilot to provide the best customer support."

Important Dates to Remember

• January 21, 2025: Initial warning about discontinuation.
• February 10, 2025: Microsoft will stop investing in Smart Assist and will hide it from new environments.
• June 2, 2025: Product support for Smart Assist will end.
• December 31, 2025: Smart Assist will be removed from all Dynamics 365 Customer Service environments.

Can Copilot Truly Replace Smart Assist?

Copilot enhances the customer service experience by auto-drafting responses in live chat, composing emails, and summarizing cases. While it builds on Smart Assist’s capabilities by crafting answers for agents to review, it may lack some functionalities that contact centers with diverse channels previously relied on.

To address this, Microsoft encourages users to utilize Copilot's “ask-a-question” feature, which detects conversation context and presents relevant knowledge articles. Alternatively, businesses can create a custom Smart Assist bot using Azure Bot Service.

For suggestions based on past cases, Microsoft will introduce a Customer Knowledge Management Agent in April 2024 to help update the knowledge base content.

Microsoft's Shift in Customer Service Strategy

Microsoft is actively reimagining its customer service offerings. This month alone, it announced the retirement of Smart Assist along with the Dynamics 365 Unified Service Desk (USD), which enables service teams to integrate multiple applications into a single agent desktop. In addition, Microsoft will stop selling its Customer Service Hub (CSH) by February 2025.

These changes indicate Microsoft's intent to streamline its customer service solutions into a cohesive environment within the Dynamics 365 ecosystem. With the launch of the Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Microsoft aims to leverage more service data and improve AI outcomes across its applications.

New Offerings

For brands looking to adopt this integrated approach, Microsoft introduced Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium in 2024, merging Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise with the Dynamics 365 Contact Center, starting at $195 per user per month. This offering enhances connectivity and efficiency in customer service operations.