The starting point
Give your first AI pilot a clear job.
- Choose one sales task and define what a useful result looks like.
- Check the customer information and access that task depends on.
- Measure the result, including the time people spend reviewing it.
Imagine a seller preparing for a customer meeting. The opportunity says the deal will close this month. A recent email says the customer has paused the project. The colleague who understands the change is away, and the account notes have not been updated.
This illustrative situation raises a practical question: which information should an AI-generated briefing rely on, and who will notice if something important is missing?
Microsoft documents record summaries for accounts, leads and opportunities in Dynamics 365 Sales. The information used depends on the record, associated data and configuration. That makes meeting preparation a useful candidate to assess, provided your team checks the information behind the output. See Microsoft's record summary guidance.
Before widening access, use these five checks to turn the idea into a pilot you can evaluate. They are practical planning recommendations for your sales leader, CRM manager and technology owner to work through together.
1. Choose a task your sellers recognise
Start with a moment in the working day. For meeting preparation, a useful result could be a short account briefing that identifies the current opportunity, recent commitments and questions the seller should clarify. Decide who needs it and when.
Write the requirement in one sentence: Before a customer meeting, the account owner can review a current briefing and check the supporting records. Then agree what belongs in that briefing. This gives the team a concrete output to assess and a way to identify the information it needs.
- Which task takes effort or creates avoidable confusion today?
- What should the seller be able to do after reviewing the output?
- Which detail would make an otherwise convincing answer misleading?
2. Check the information behind the answer
You do not need a project to clean every field before testing one task. Begin with the information that affects this decision: the account and opportunity relationship, key contacts, recent activity, next steps and dates. Where the task needs information from another system, establish how the selected experience can access it.
Take a small sample of records your sellers actually use. Ask an account owner to identify the current customer story, then compare it with what the CRM contains. Record the gaps, why they exist and who can correct them. Keep this exercise focused on the pilot rather than adding fields that nobody needs.
- Can we identify the current contact and responsible account owner?
- Do the dates and next steps reflect what the customer last agreed?
- Can a seller trace an important statement back to its source?
3. Be specific about the Microsoft experience
The Sales agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot within Dynamics 365 Sales have different capabilities and integrations. Microsoft's comparison describes the Sales agent working across Microsoft 365 experiences, while Copilot in Dynamics 365 Sales is built into the sales application. Use the exact product name when you define your pilot. See Microsoft's product comparison.
Ask the technology owner to confirm the selected feature's current availability, licence requirements, configuration and permissions in your environment. Agree which information it needs and whether it should only prepare an answer or also propose a change. If an agent will perform actions, describe each permitted action and its review or escalation route.
4. Decide who checks the result
Someone needs to judge whether the briefing prepares the seller for the conversation. For this pilot, make the account owner responsible for checking customer commitments and important dates. Give them a simple way to flag missing context and correct the underlying record.
The CRM manager can collect recurring issues and distinguish a missing update from a configuration problem. The technology owner investigates access and system behaviour. The sales leader decides whether the new approach improves the task enough to continue. These responsibilities should be clear before the first users start.
5. Measure the task, including review effort
Record how the task works today. During the pilot, measure the total time needed to prepare and check the briefing, the important facts that need correction, and whether the seller finds it useful. Look at the detail behind the results; a faster output may still require substantial checking.
| Measure | What to record |
|---|---|
| Total preparation time | Minutes spent gathering, reviewing and correcting information. |
| Important corrections | Missing or inaccurate facts that could change the conversation. |
| Use in practice | Whether participating sellers use the briefing and why. |
| Operating effort | Configuration, support and consumption costs relevant to the pilot. |
If you are building an agent in Copilot Studio, Microsoft provides evaluations using test cases and expected responses or quality criteria. Include representative situations, missing information and the different users who will rely on it. Automated evaluation adds useful evidence to business review. See Microsoft's agent evaluation guidance.
Bring the five checks into one pilot
A proposed starting point is a 30-day pilot with a small group of account owners and one defined task. Use the first week to establish the baseline and prepare the records. Test and review representative outputs during the next two weeks. In the final week, decide what to improve, whether to extend the pilot, or whether another task would be a better choice.
Nemely helps teams shape that decision through AI readiness, data quality and user adoption work. Bring a specific sales task and the questions behind it. Together, we can identify the dependencies and a practical next step.
Download report (PDF)
A practical guide to CRM and AI readiness
Explore the six-page guide with five readiness checks, an illustrative sales situation, a pilot brief and measurement worksheets.
What's inside
- Five practical readiness checks
- An illustrative customer briefing
- A pilot brief worksheet
- A proposed 30-day plan
- A measurement worksheet
Download now
Get your copy
Complete this short form to download the PDF.
Use your company email address. Personal email providers such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook are not accepted.
Your PDF is ready. Download your copy below.
Download PDFWe use your details to provide this resource and manage your request. Downloading does not subscribe you to marketing emails. Privacy policy
