The Partner Opportunity For Microsoft AI Business Solutions

Opportunity Overview

The trends discussed in the previous section have increased revenues across AI Business Solutions, both in terms of total revenue potential (i.e., what partners are offering) and the expected revenue associated with the likely bundles of services that customers are buying (attach rates applied).

The expected revenue opportunity grew by 17% for an enterprise customer on a three-year journey. Core Microsoft 365 and core Dynamics 365 solution areas represent the largest share of the expected revenue opportunity, while AI solution areas are growing the fastest and driving partner expansion. Compared to last year, the expected revenue opportunity for Agents more than doubled, growing by 152%. Interviewees explained that while AI is driving growth, their core business remains strong and growing, with AI as a leading growth factor.

This is Forrester’s first AI Business Solutions Partner Opportunity Assessment, and categorizations have shifted. Forrester makes adjustments each year to add, recategorize, and remove solution areas. As a result, not every solution area has year-over-year growth calculations.

Forrester’s FY 2026 analysis includes Low Code (Power Platform), Sales, and Service as new solution areas. The FY 2025 analysis included a CRM solution area, but Forrester is not making year-over-year comparisons with Sales and Service solution areas due to the differing approaches.

Forrester also broke down the expected revenue opportunity into four service areas, excluding licensing revenue: deployment, advisory, solutions development, and managed services.

• Deployment services. Deployment services are the typical entry point for new customer engagements. These services include workshops; proofs of concept; pilots; and initial setup, integration, configuration, and data migration. The market trends discussed previously are increasing customer demand for new deployments of AI Business Solutions and creating additional partner services opportunities during and after deployment.

• Advisory services. Advisory services often lead or run alongside deployment services. Partners can also offer these services to customers with existing deployments. These services include upfront strategy and planning, center of excellence (COE) setup, governance, adoption and enablement, business process optimization, and change management. This work frequently leads to ongoing revenue opportunities such as continued training and governance support.

• Solutions development services. Solutions development includes resalable intellectual property (IP), sold either as standalone offerings or used to improve the efficiency of deployments and managed services. It also includes custom solution development and advanced integration work such as building custom apps and agents. Building agents is the largest growth opportunity.

• Managed services. Managed services offer scalable, predictable, higher-margin recurring revenue for partners and happen after deployment, advisory, and solutions development. These services include solution support and enhancement, monitoring and reporting, ongoing advisory services such as governance and training, and ongoing development through factory approaches (for example, identifying use cases and building solutions over time). Long-term client relationships also lead to other sales opportunities across solution areas.

Microsoft AI Business Solutions Practices: Good, Better, Best

The Microsoft partners Forrester interviewed were diverse in maturity, scale, customers, geography, and offerings. The total and expected revenue opportunity ranges from good offerings to best-in-class offerings delivered by more advanced and mature partners. Examples include:

• A good partner may deliver deployment services, basic advisory services such as planning, and limited solutions development, depending on the solution area. The focus is on aligning customers with the right Microsoft solution and deploying it to support their business outcomes.

• A better partner may also deliver additional advisory services, such as governance and change management. It may also provide basic managed services and expanded solutions development. At this stage, the partner relationship becomes more strategic.

• A best-in-class partner delivers all the above, plus ongoing solutions development and advisory services including factories, governance, and adoption and enablement. Partners often deliver these services through full ongoing managed services agreements. Best-in-class partners may also offer resalable IP, such as agents, and build custom solutions and integrations.

Based on these definitions, the following tables and chart illustrate the good, better, and best expected revenue opportunities per user per month by solution and service area.

The expected revenue opportunity varies across partner types, driven by the breadth of services offered, with more mature partners selling a fuller range of offerings. The opportunity also varies by the solution areas a partner serves and many other factors.

Readers can also calculate deal sizes by multiplying the expected revenue per user per month by the number of employees and 36 months. For example, a good partner serving a new enterprise customer with 5,000 knowledge workers in the Microsoft 365 Copilot solution area ($2.20 per user per month) could recognize an expected revenue opportunity of $396,000 over a three-year customer journey.

Forrester recommends that readers apply their own estimates within the framework to assess their organization’s partner opportunity.

Microsoft 365 Copilot And Copilot Chat

Microsoft 365 Copilot is one of the newest solution areas for partners. This solution area includes Copilot Chat but will refer to the solution area as Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft partners help enterprise customers deploy, adopt, and measure their use of the AI solution. Strong enterprise demand for AI has expanded the partner opportunity. Partners are deploying Microsoft 365 Copilot more frequently and taking on more adoption work. Looking ahead, partners expect continued growth as enterprises invest in training, change management, and related services.

Microsoft 365 Copilot connects with other AI Business Solutions areas, creating upside for traditional Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 partners. It also enables partners to expand into additional solution areas. For example, an interviewee said: “We try to find related work outside of the Microsoft funded work. Customers might go from Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption to agent builds to Power Platform governance to security and identity. The use cases have to be adjacent.”
 

• Enterprise AI maturity is influencing deployments. Microsoft 365 Copilot engagements typically begin with a workshop, followed by a proof of concept and deployment. However, partners may join the customer journey at different stages. Some enterprise customers deploy to all users upfront, while others take a phased approach with follow-on deployments. Enterprise customers are also willing to pay for data security and data platform work to maximize their AI investments. Partners said that enterprises focused more on experimentation last year. This year, customers are more ready to move to full deployment and adoption, driving higher attach rates. Demand for Microsoft 365 Copilot is strong and growing as enterprises look to adopt AI and deliver results. Partners said Microsoft provides the foundation enterprises want for transformation.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot advisory services are attaching more often. Advisory services for Microsoft 365 Copilot include strategy and planning, data compliance and governance, adoption, and change management. An interviewee described their advisory services as “communication, training, stakeholder management, resistance management, and measurement.” As enterprise customers have adopted the solution and focus on realizing value, advisory services have grown and attached more frequently. One interviewee said all customers need these services. Partners also explained that advisory services can be their first entry point with customers who have already purchased or even deployed licenses but now need additional support. Compared to other solution areas, Microsoft 365 Copilot requires more training and change management, and it often leads to ongoing engagements as it evolves. Deal sizes varied based on client budgets and Microsoft funding, but partners remained flexible in sizing advisory services to meet client needs. Looking ahead, partners were optimistic about continued growth. One interviewee said: “Our Copilot revenue grew about 40% last year. I would expect the same this year, if not more. Most of it was adoption work.”

• Solutions development services. Enterprise customers may require custom development and integration work to connect solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot. However, most solutions development work related to AI is agentic and is therefore categorized under the Agents solution area.

• AI adoption is an ongoing exercise. While still early, managed services offerings include usage dashboarding, ongoing adoption services, and user support. Enterprises need to measure how they leverage AI. Adoption is an ongoing effort due to phased deployments and the evolving technology. One interviewee said: “We are grateful for the constant pipeline that comes from working with Microsoft. There is typically at least a new feature, if not a new suite or tool coming out, so there is a lot of change to manage.” Partners expect this service area to continue to grow.

Agents

Partners in the agentic AI solution area help enterprise customers build, adopt, run, and manage AI agents. They most often deliver this work using Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry. After an initial period of exploration, enterprises are now ready to build and adopt agents. As a result, both the total and expected revenue opportunity have increased significantly. Partners also expect advisory and managed services to grow with the introduction of Agent 365. Agents interface with every other solution area, enabling partners to upsell and extend the revenue opportunity.

• Increasing enterprise readiness for agents bolsters deployment services. Deployment services for Agents include workshops, proofs of concept, and Copilot Studio setup. Last year, enterprise customers focused on investigating agentic AI. Partners now report that customers are ready to build and adopt agents, driving higher attach rates for this upfront deployment work.

• Advisory services for agents are essential. Advisory services for Agents are similar to those for Microsoft 365 Copilot, including building COEs, running training, and setting up governance. Currently, customers rely on advisory services to help employees learn how to use, build, and manage agents. An interviewee said: “We have a full governance offering that we call our AI enablement offer. It goes from strategy to managing agents that are not being used after six months. The Power Platform offer has helped us shape that.” Looking ahead, partners expect to do more business process optimization with agents and report growing demand for agent identity and access management (IAM) and governance. In particular, partners are optimistic about Agent 365 and the advisory opportunities it will create.

• Agent building is quickly growing. The majority of the agent opportunity comes from building agents. Partners build agents using Copilot Studio or Microsoft Foundry, depending on the scenario. Partners report increased enterprise investment in building agents and expect this trend to continue. In fact, one partner already doing significant agent work is forecasting 50% to 80% growth in agents overall next year. Partners shared examples of charging anywhere from thousands of dollars to more than $1 million per agent. Pricing varies based on complexity, required integrations, global deployment, and compliance requirements. Partners are also still determining the best pricing models for these services. One interviewee said: “Building agents is a growing part of our AI practice. Project size depends on agent complexity and required integrations.”

• Managed services will grow for ongoing agent development and governance. Partners are beginning to provide ongoing advisory and solutions development services for agents. These services help clients design, build, and run agents over time. This often includes factory-style approaches, where partners continuously build agents to meet enterprise use cases. This work has increased year over year, in line with growth in solutions development services. Partners anticipate that governance as a service for agents will grow in FY 2027 as customers deploy more agents and require stronger management capabilities. Interviewees expressed optimism that Agent 365 will enable this revenue stream. An interviewee said: “You are going to have hundreds (if not thousands) of agents working across your organization. How do you manage that? That is the value. The managed services play is helping you build your COE or your agent control room that helps you control that new paradigm shift of having all this software running in your organization.”

Low Code (Power Platform)

The Power Platform revenue opportunity includes all low-code partner work related to Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages. (Copilot Studio is in the Agents solution area.) Partners told Forrester that they view the revenue opportunity holistically and by service area, rather than by individual solution area, because their offerings are often platformwide (e.g., COEs) and typically draw on multiple Power Platform products for customer use cases. This view aligns with Power Platform’s development into an AI application platform and an AI agent platform where apps, agents, workflows, and data converge.

Partners said key growth drivers included expanded low-code adoption and increased Power Platform demand, cost optimization pressure, and AI. Overall, they are optimistic about the revenue opportunity not only from AI but also from core low-code.

For more details on the Power Platform opportunity, please reference The Partner Opportunity For Microsoft Power Platform.

The Low Code (Power Platform) partner opportunity includes:

• Deployment services opportunities are increasing. Power Platform engagements often begin with envisioning workshops and discovery sessions, identifying challenges and pain points. This leads to proofs of concept followed by deployment. Microsoft supports its partners in this early work with resources like the Copilot and Power Jumpstart initiative. Microsoft also provides funding for these engagements, helping partners progress and win deals. Interviewed partners said this funding helps remove sales hurdles, unlocks opportunities, and drives revenue. Deployment services attach at a high rate (65%), with overall opportunities growing due to the trends discussed previously.

• Advisory services have risen in importance. Partners said advisory services have steadily become more important, and customers today are more willing to pay for them than in years past. To recognize the benefits of low-code platforms, customers must plan, establish governance foundations and best practices, and train their teams. Advisory services include COE setup, governance, and adoption and enablement (e.g., training, building with clients, etc.). Partners also deliver advisory services flexibly, including supporting customers that previously undertook low‑code work and now need help adding governance, activating citizen developers, or rebooting their efforts.

• Core low-code solutions development services are growing. Building apps, automations, and pages with Power Platform is the core revenue opportunity for partners, and demand is increasing. Partners shared numerous examples of customer challenges and creative solutions that delivered improved business outcomes. Deal scope varied significantly based on the complexity, number, and scale of use cases, not simply the number of employees. Another factor partners had to consider was the customer and whether they would be doing some of this development themselves, particularly for less complex use cases or parts of development with AI assistance. Partners emphasized that while agent-related work is expanding, apps, pages, and automation remain in strong demand. With Power Platform’s evolution, partners are infusing AI into the apps and automations they build for customers.

• Managed services, including factory approaches, are significant. Managed and ongoing services represent a critical part of the revenue opportunity. These services include support and enhancement for developed solutions, as well as ongoing advisory (e.g., governance, COE management, and adoption and enablement) and continued solutions development such as factory approaches. Partners described factory models where they work with customers to identify and prioritize use cases and then iteratively build solutions. Deal sizes varied depending on the number of use cases and their complexity. Factories typically lasted multiple months, and partners shared that they did renew over multiple years, depending on the customer.

Secure AI Productivity

Secure AI Productivity is the broadest solution area and the core of Microsoft’s productivity story. This includes the various Microsoft 365 SKUs for knowledge and frontline workers, SharePoint, and Windows 11. Microsoft 365 includes a range of security and compliance solutions, varying by SKU, and AI Business Solutions partners are increasingly expanding their capabilities in areas such as identity management and data governance/protection. This growth in security capabilities is a necessity if a partner wants to fully support their customers on an AI journey.

Secure AI Productivity is almost always the starting point for new customers, even if AI is the catalyst for the sales conversation. Many of the other solutions areas such as Converged Communications and Cloud and AI Endpoints are a natural extension. For existing customers, a large sales motion is the E3 to E5 migration, which creates a lot of new partner opportunities. Looking to the future, partners are optimistic that a wave of E5 to the newly announced E7 SKU will further grow revenues.

• Deployments can be a multiyear journey. Because of the breadth of solutions that make up Secure AI Productivity, the full deployment at a new customer can take a long time. Furthermore, the constant addition of new capabilities means that there is always more that a partner can do in future phases. For E3 to E5 migrations, a deployment can range between one and six months at a small enterprise, depending on the solutions and a customer’s maturity. A series of workshops, especially if funded by Microsoft, is the typical starting point and has a very high success rate in leading to enterprisewide deployments. Increasingly, security workshops and follow-on work are a part of the process. There is also renewed interest in cleaning up existing SharePoint Online deployments because they are a primary repository for Microsoft 365 Copilot, and companies that are still on-prem need to migrate to the cloud to take advantage of AI. These migrations vary depending on the amount of content, with one partner describing a one-year $500,000 project at a small enterprise as typical. Partners did not see significant Windows 11 deployment revenue opportunity.

• Advisory services are increasingly important as companies try to maximize the benefits from their investments. IT organizations are increasingly being asked to do more without increasing budgets for people or technologies. This is leading to wider adoption of the capabilities built into Microsoft 365, especially the E5 SKU. Achieving the desired benefits requires a range of advisory services, including strategy and planning, training for IT teams, and change management in terms of business process reengineering and end-user adoption. Partners also report that customers are more willing to pay for advisory services because of AI’s disruptive capabilities and the potential for large-scale benefits. Across all areas of Secure AI Productivity, these advisory services can be worth as much as 60% of the deployment opportunity when a customer asks their partner to lead the change management component rather than manage it in-house.

• Monetizing in-house IP is the largest component of solutions development revenue. Partners continue to create IP that fills the white space around Microsoft’s productivity solutions. These can be features that business users interact with, automation tools for IT organizations, and IP used internally by partners for processes such as SharePoint migrations. Partners reported more success transacting in the Microsoft online marketplace compared to previous years. Partners often put their IP in the marketplace to initiate sales conversations or to make Microsoft field sales aware of these offerings. Another growing area of solutions development is creating SharePoint agents and custom workflows.

• Wide-ranging managed services, including L1 through L3 support contracts, attach as part of the Secure AI Productivity Journey. In addition to the keeping-the-lights-on, evergreen, and user-support managed services that partners have offered for many years, there is an increase in basic data security managed services in support of AI adoption. Many partners report investing in these new capabilities, and when their breadth and depth of security compliance expertise is exceeded, they will bring in a managed services security provider (MSSP). For the more traditional managed services, an all-encompassing offering including L1 through L3 support can be $50 per user per month or higher. For the newer security-related managed services, one partner example of a managed security offering covering the Microsoft estate was $100,000 per year plus $100 per user per year. When it comes to delivering managed services, partners are investing heavily in AI to automate processes, especially trouble-ticket handling.

Converged Communications

Converged Communications includes everything within the Microsoft Teams solution family — Teams, Teams Premium, Teams Phone, and Teams Rooms along with the related Microsoft Places. Because Microsoft Teams Phone and Teams Rooms are often served by specialized partners and have different market dynamics, each of these solution areas is discussed separately.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is closely related to a customer’s Secure AI Productivity journey, although its decoupling from the Microsoft 365 licenses means it is treated separately. Teams continues to be the place where work gets done, including interacting with genAI and agentic AI solutions. For this reason, Teams has become more important to both customers and partners.

• There are still migrations to Teams even though most enterprise are already using it. Therefore, most deployment work is related to updating how Teams is used to integrate AI into the flow of work. These are small projects but open up larger advisory and solutions development opportunities.

• Teams governance is still in high demand. Partners continue to do work around Teams governance and have incorporated aspects of AI governance into these offerings. Advisory services also include training and change management services on the use of AI within Teams.

• Solutions development primarily consists of building Teams applications. Power Platform is the most common development tool for building applications and custom workflows. There is less advanced integration work than in the past because of the wide range of off-the-shelf connectors.

• Managed services is excluded here to avoid double counting. Because Teams is so closely related to Secure AI Productivity, Teams-related managed services are bundled into those offerings and excluded here.

Microsoft Teams Phone

Forrester interviewed a wide range of partners about their voice offerings, including telcos and more generalized productivity partners. All of them spoke about how AI is increasing and changing the type of work that they do, especially the deployment of voice-related agents. Some partners reported that their more traditional voice work and revenues are decreasing because of the reduction in the number of phone calls being made. That said, partners still see migration opportunities from legacy phone systems, but they are increasingly in industries such as manufacturing that are laggards in adopting new technologies. Partners also said that there continues to be a close relationship between Microsoft Teams Phone and Teams Rooms, with each driving opportunities in the other area. (Dynamics 365 Contact Center opportunities are discussed as part of the Service solution area.)

• Deployments are increasingly a move from another digital voice provider. With more companies on the Microsoft 365 E5 SKU and also looking to optimize their technology spend, partners see more opportunities to migrate from competitive solutions to Teams Phone. Partners spoke about the desire to keep upfront costs as low as possible to remove barriers to entry, with the goal of selling managed services and calling plans. One partner described that they have removed all upfront costs and included it in multiyear managed services contracts. Deployment revenue size is driven by two main factors: the similarity of the prior calling solution and the number of locations. An example of a large enterprise migration was a company with 100 locations and 70,000 employees, which took three years and was worth more than $3 million.

• Advisory services consist of planning work and change management. Voice continues to be fundamental to business processes and business productivity, and there are now more ways to communicate than ever before. As a result, a lot of effort is put into the design of voice solutions and understanding the impacts on users. Perhaps more importantly, the increased use of AI agents as part of voice solutions is creating new advisory opportunities. These include reimagining business processes and establishing governance models for voice agent factories. Partners expect this to be a large area of growth for the foreseeable future. Advisory services attach at 49%, with newer AI-related services attaching at a lower rate because they are so new.

• Agentic work is the new driver of solutions development. Traditional custom integration and development work continues, and partners still sell their own IP to make management easier. However, the interest and excitement are around building voice agents. (Much of this is related to contact centers, which is part of the Dynamics 365 discussion.) One example of agentic work was at a multinational insurance company. There were multiple use cases, and each required several agents. Each use case was worth $500,000, and the expectation is that there will be a couple of new use cases each year.

• Managed services revenue, including calling plans, represents 60% of all revenues. Partners have a wide range of offerings, from basic support managing moves, adds, changes, and deletions (MACD) to full outsourcing. With voice now being part of digital IT rather than a completely separate technology stack and skills base, IT organizations that use external managed services want voice bundled into that outsourcing. That said, the trend of fewer calls being placed is, in many cases, reducing calling plan revenues. Partners are looking to AI-related managed services to help make up for these reductions in the years to come. The overall attach rate is 42%, with traditional voice manage services attaching at much higher rates than the new AI managed services.

Microsoft Teams Rooms And Microsoft Places

Microsoft Teams Rooms has also benefited from the rise of AI. In order to fully take advantage of AI in meeting rooms, both the software and hardware solutions need to be improved. A counterforce to the AI-related growth is the global increase in hardware and labor prices. Generally speaking, partners said that these cost pressures have not resulted in smaller budgets — rather, fewer rooms are being upgraded. This has also put downward pressure on profit margins. With regard to Microsoft Places, the post-COVID-19 pandemic return to office and hybrid working have led to increased interest in Microsoft Places and more deployments.

• Rooms that support the use of AI results in increased deployment revenues. Because of AI, partners reported a reduction in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) buildouts. AI-optimized rooms require better hardware as well as better room design/construction. Another AI-related trend is an increase in the number of rooms, but the average size is smaller. The most common rooms are six- to eight-person conference rooms followed by one- to two-person huddle rooms. These are less costly to build out than larger rooms, which creates some downward revenue pressures. Partners are trying to keep these upfront costs as low as possible to win the downstream managed services contracts. Partners also said that there is increased network infrastructure work being done to support better performance and the use of AI. Microsoft Places deployments are comparatively much smaller, with most of the work consisting of mapping out offices.

• Advisory revenues are comparable in size to deployment. Advisory services consist mostly of creating templated room designs that reflect best practices, along with creating training materials for using rooms. A typical project to create best practices and standard room designs can range from $75,000 to $150,000. A need also exists for creating training materials and providing some change management services around using Microsoft Places.

• Partner-created IP is an increasingly important part of solutions development. Partners have created many tools for more efficient rooms management, including scheduling and remote diagnostics. This latter area is especially important because increased labor costs have made it harder to have as many on-site technicians. These tools increasingly incorporate AI agents to improve efficiencies and provide better service.

• Managed services are growing in popularity as meeting rooms become more critical. Per-room managed service prices vary widely depending on the service level required and typically range between $50 and $150 per room per month. More basic rooms are at the lower end of the price range, with remote troubleshooting and a set number of hours of on-site support. More inclusive contracts include quarterly or annual room inspections. When it comes to the most sophisticated rooms such as auditoriums and boardrooms, paying for onsite support is still the norm. Managed services for Microsoft Places are beginning to land, primarily around ongoing mapping of floor plans.

Cloud And AI Endpoints

The Cloud and AI Endpoints solution area includes partner services for cloud PCs, virtualization, and endpoint and device management. These services support solutions such as Windows 365, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Intune. Interviewees noted growing Intune adoption and increased customer migration from other vendors’ virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions. In addition to overall momentum, Windows 365 deployments are attaching more frequently as Windows 365 Reserve and Windows 365 Link strengthen the value proposition and expand potential customer user bases. Partners are optimistic that Windows 365 for Agents will drive growth, especially in advisory services. This solution area also connects with Secure AI Productivity and broader security offerings.
 

• Windows 365 is deploying more often. For enterprise customers, Microsoft partners deploy Intune, Windows 365, and Azure Virtual Desktop. These engagements often start with a Microsoft-funded assessment or workshop, followed by a pilot or proof of concept and then full deployment and rollout. Project sizes vary based on customer complexity, size, use cases and personas, and global scale. One interviewee described the enterprise opportunity, “When global teams are part of the deployment or POC, the revenue opportunity can double because we are working with different time zones, different language platforms, and different use cases.”
  Deployment demand was stable or growing as enterprise customers faced rising costs from legacy on-prem VDI. Many are shifting to modern cloud endpoints to optimize costs and consolidate vendors and tools. In particular, interviewees noted that Windows 365 deployments are increasing as Windows 365 Link and Windows 365 Reserve strengthen the value proposition and expand user bases. Partners also expect Windows 365 for Agents to drive future growth, alongside factors such as AI compute requirements, scenarios where employees need to run processes with laptops closed, and more.
  One interviewee further explained how the opportunity expands. They said: “Windows 365 Link unlocks a Windows 365 opportunity in terms of not being able to use Windows 365 in a location. It adds to that value proposition.” On Windows 365 Reserve, they added, “Windows 365 Reserve builds customer stickiness, it adds more value into the licenses, and the price point is spot on.” They also noted that they were already discussing Windows 365 for Agents use cases with customers.

• Partners expect Windows 365 for Agents to grow advisory services. Microsoft partners offer adoption and training, change management, communication, strategy, and other advisory services to enterprise customers deploying endpoints. To advise effectively, partners need to understand enterprises’ existing endpoints, use cases, personas, and goals. This work took place both during initial planning and future phases. An interviewee said, “We assess their current environment, the use cases, and the user personas, and then we build the recommendations.” Similarly, another interviewee said, “We build the business case, do user persona mapping, and understand the use case applications through to the technical assessment … to design, delivery, onboarding, business change and adoption, communications, and training through to ongoing support.”
  Looking ahead, partners anticipate growth in advisory services tied to Windows 365 for Agents. One interviewee said: “The next phase of growth is Windows 365 for Agents. … Risk mitigation is a big part of the Microsoft partner opportunity.” They explained: “As soon as you give agents accounts and the agents are operating as a person, that becomes a more proactive discussion for partners. That is where we, as a partner, need to go in terms of providing that.” They concluded: “Being more consultative around those conversations and bringing that level of humanity and thoughtfulness is going to be more and more important.”

• Solutions development services are stable. Partners commonly use IP to streamline the delivery of cloud and AI endpoint services. Some partners also sell their own IP, although it attaches less frequently. They also perform custom integration work for more complex environments.

• Managed services are the largest part of the opportunity. Post-deployment, Microsoft partners seek to attach managed services for Cloud and AI Endpoints. These offerings include managed Intune, Azure Virtual Desktop, and Windows 365, along with device management, monitoring, and support. One interviewee explained their organization’s offerings: “We have a managed Azure Virtual Desktop service. We look after auto-scaling optimization, ongoing future-proofing of the environment, managed Intune advice, and managing across their entire cloud endpoint estate through to total device lifecycle management.” Attach rates and revenue varied based on enterprises’ in-house capabilities, the solutions deployed, and broader Microsoft 365 and managed services usage.

ERP

Forrester defines ERP as “a modular, interoperable software suite that is evolving beyond being a system of record to become an intelligent orchestration engine that delivers financial control, operational resilience, and strategic insight through integrated, cross-domain process execution.¹¹ In ERP engagements, partners help enterprise customers transform finance and operations using Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management.

Interviewees said enterprise demand for ERP remains strong and, in some cases it is growing. Key drivers include AI, cloud adoption (though some partners noted slower momentum), vendor consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, and customer growth. The services mix has been shifting. Partners have been aiming to deploy faster to meet customer expectations, increasing business process optimization advisory, starting to build agents, and growing ongoing services for development and support. Overall, partners are optimistic, particularly because customers see strong synergy between AI and ERP.

Interviewees said ERP often enables growth in other solution areas. One interviewee estimated that 95% of customers that implement Dynamics later purchase additional services.

Forrester calculated the ERP opportunity per knowledge worker to align with other solution areas. To calculate per-Dynamics 365 user numbers, readers should multiply the per-knowledge-worker numbers by 5,000 and then divide by the assumed number of license-holding users. For example, if the ERP expected revenue opportunity is $11.15 per knowledge worker per month and there are 400 license-holders, the expected opportunity would be $139.40 per user per month. However, partners said that employee and user counts matter less for ERP, Sales, and Service than for non-Dynamics 365 solution areas. Instead, partners consider client and project complexity when evaluating ERP revenue opportunities.

• Enterprises see value in deploying ERP for AI. To deploy Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, enterprise customers use Microsoft partner services like workshops and setup; proofs of concept; initial integration, system configuration, and data migration; and rollout. Interviewees said demand for deployment services was strong and generally consistent or growing. They attributed this demand to AI, the shift to cloud-based business applications, vendor consolidation, and customer growth. They also said customers understand the value of data and AI with ERP and see clear benefits in leveraging a single platform.
  For enterprise customers, total ERP project deal sizes regularly ranged from $1 million to $5 million or more (including deployment, advisory, and solutions development). These deal sizes are similar to examples previously shared in this study. ERP deployment services attach at a high rate (70%) because these solutions are critical and typically engage partners and Microsoft with clear intent.

• Business process optimization is valuable. As a core part of an ERP project, partners provide upfront strategy and planning, training, change management, governance, and related advisory services. Partners also increasingly help customers adapt and optimize their ERP-related business processes. These services attach more frequently than in the past as customers recognize the importance of data and AI and seek to maximize the value of their investments. Interviewees said advisory services always attach, but the scope varies. They cited examples of strategy or training components worth hundreds of thousands of dollars within multimillion-dollar ERP projects for large, complex enterprise clients.

• Partners are now building and customizing ERP-related agents. While deployment services are part of every ERP project, enterprise customers often require customization, extensions, and advanced integration work beyond standard work. Depending on the customer, interviewees shared said this work can account for up to 60% of an ERP project, which can exceed $1 million in value. However, some partners aim to reduce customization and extensions during initial deployment. Instead, they are increasing advisory work to help customers adjust business processes rather than technology. This approach also enables faster deployment and creates opportunities for solutions development through ongoing managed services.
  Beyond deployment-related development services, partners continue to build IP to accelerate deployments and migrations and deliver greater customer value. Partners leverage subscription models, charge fixed one-time fees, and otherwise bundle in the cost of IP into ERP projects. This IP helps partners demonstrate technical and industry expertise, leading to additional opportunities.
  Last year, partners expected to soon begin customizing and configuring ERP-focused agents. This year, Forrester found that partners are both building agents to play a role similar to past IP and creating agents as part of broader extension and customization work. Microsoft’s first-party Dynamics 365 agents also serve as effective sales enablers and conversation openers. One interviewee estimated that 80% to 90%, if not all, of their organization’s ERP projects included some element of agentic work. Another interviewee estimated that they work on AI agentic use cases and POCs for 30% to 40% of ERP projects. Interviewees expect this trend and growth to continue into next year.

• Managed services are and will be even more important. Post-deployment, partners provide ongoing management, business process optimization, and continuous improvements, including AI agents. This represents a shift from earlier business models that focused primarily on break/fix work and updates. One interviewee estimated that managed services revenue comprised 20% break/fix work, 15% updates and upgrades, and 65% ongoing small projects. Partners are also more frequently successfully attaching managed services, which is increasingly important as deployments become faster and more phased. For example, one interviewee said their organization attached managed services 50% to 100% more often year over year. Deal sizes varied based on the scope and complexity of the ongoing work.
  One interviewee shared: “As we transition to the era of AI, this manage-and-evolve service will become more important because the SI work will become smaller. It is more about the long-term relationship to continue evolving the platform.”

Sales

Partners in the Sales solution area help enterprise customers transform how they target, acquire, and retain customers by improving sales and marketing functions. They do this by providing delivering a broad range of services for Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

This solution area is growing as enterprises adopt AI in sales and consolidate vendors. Compared to last year, partners are building more sales and marketing agents and more often attaching managed services for ongoing solutions development. Partners are optimistic about future growth and innovation in this solution area, particularly around agents.

Sales also integrates closely with other Dynamics 365 solution areas. Interviewees noted that Sales deals often lead to Service projects and are increasingly bundled together at the enterprise level. One interviewee shared that ERP, Sales, and Service are increasingly packaged together as enterprises transform. Partners also said they often land with Sales and then expand into other AI Business Solutions.

Forrester calculated the Sales opportunity per knowledge worker to align with other solution areas. To calculate per-Dynamics 365 user numbers, readers should multiply the per-knowledge-worker numbers by 5,000 and then divide by the assumed number of license-holding users. For example, if the Sales expected revenue opportunity is $2.95 per knowledge worker per month and there are 650 license-holders, the expected opportunity would be $22.70 per user per month. However, partners said that employee and user counts matter less for ERP, Sales, and Service than for non-Dynamics 365 solution areas. Instead, partners consider client and project complexity when evaluating Sales revenue opportunities.

• Partners are winning competitive Sales migrations. Deploying Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights often includes proofs of concept, pilots, deployment, and rollout. Deployment includes setup, initial integration and system configuration, and data migration. Enterprises view these solutions as a way to boost sales with AI and a prime transformation opportunity. They are also looking to consolidate vendors and migrate away from underperforming CRM solutions. One interviewee described how Microsoft was helping partners win customers: “With the field explicitly focused on competitive opportunities, that has generated a good number of opportunities. Opportunity flow has grown year over year for the past couple of years.” As with ERP projects, Sales projects varied widely in duration and deal size depending on enterprise complexity and prior states. As a rule of thumb, Sales projects were typically smaller than ERP projects and comparable to or smaller than Service projects. Interviewees shared example Sales project typical deal sizes ranging from $250,000 to $1.5 million or more (including deployment, advisory, and solutions development).

• Enterprises are willing to pay for Sales advisory services. Enterprise customers need advisory support before, during, and after Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights deployments. For partners, this includes strategy, change management, training, and related advisory work. AI has increased demand for these services, and customers are increasingly willing to pay for them. For example, an interviewee said: “There are customers using CRM systems that feel they did not get what they wanted. Now, they are willing to pay for strategy. In a $750,000 deal, strategy is a component.” Forrester modeled total Sales advisory services at approximately 25% of the initial project deal size. Advisory services, including upfront strategy and planning work, attach 59% of the time.

• CRM agent demand has matured. When deploying Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, enterprise customers often require significant custom development and advanced integration. Compared to last year, this custom development increasingly includes CRM-focused agents, which partners previously described as being in the early stages. Some partners now offer agents as standalone IP alongside apps and accelerators. Sales solutions development represents a significant opportunity for partners as complex enterprise clients require greater levels of custom development, integration, and now, agents.
  One interviewee explained the evolution of the work partners are doing: “The core work is reshaping. It is no longer just the traditional configuration of the CRM platform. Agent deployment is within that. Today, agent deployment is closer to 10% to 25%, or even 30% of the work. We see a massive shift happening. We will start to just light up the platform for data behind the scenes. Most of the work will likely happen through Copilot and agents. I see that number shifting closer to fifty-fifty.”

• Managed services are the target. After deployment, partners provide ongoing services from basic support and periodic updates to continuing projects and enhancements. Partners aim to grow managed services as a share of revenue and report higher attach rates as a result. One interviewee explained the importance of managed services: “Managed services is an area where we do extremely well at the enterprise high end. It creates an annuity revenue model. Without it, we would have to resell our entire portfolio year after year. We have long-term manage-and-evolve contracts at more than 50% of our clients.” These ongoing manage-and-evolve services, including building new CRM-related agents, represent the largest Sales-managed services opportunities. An interviewee added, “A new line of work is coming where you find and improve agents over time.”

Service

Partners help enterprise clients transform how they serve customers — either via self-service or an interaction with a customer service representative — before, during, and after a purchase with customer service solutions (CSSes).¹² Microsoft partners do this by offering services for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Contact Center.

Interviewees told Forrester that demand for these solutions and services was strong, driven by goals to improve service effectiveness and efficiency. Partners are deploying Dynamics 365 Contact Center more often because it resonates with enterprise customers, and they are doing more agent-related work than last year. AI work in this area also gives partners an entry point to enterprise customers using competing solutions. Partners are pleased with the solutions’ progress and expect continued opportunities.

The Service solution area overlaps significantly with Sales. Partners said Service projects often follow Sales projects, though they can also lead. Increasingly, they sell Sales and Service together, often alongside ERP, as part of larger transformations. Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Teams Phone also create complementary opportunities for partners.

Forrester calculated the Service opportunity per knowledge worker to align with other solution areas. To calculate per-Dynamics 365 user numbers, readers should multiply the per-knowledge-worker numbers by 5,000 and then divide by the assumed number of license-holding users. For example, if the Service expected revenue opportunity is $5.60 per knowledge worker per month and there are 650 license-holders, the expected opportunity would be $43.10 per user per month. However, partners said that employee and user counts matter less for ERP, Sales, and Service than for non-Dynamics 365 solution areas. Instead, partners consider client and project complexity when evaluating Service revenue opportunities. Partners should also consider what modules they deploy and support. Based on interview feedback, Forrester factored in economies of scale when calculating the opportunity.

• Service deployment opportunities are growing. Implementations of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Dynamics 365 Contact Center typically move from assessment and discovery to proofs of concept, pilots, and full deployment. Deployment includes setup, initial integration, system configuration, and data migration. Interviewees said deployment demand was strong as enterprises sought to improve service efficiency and effectiveness with AI while optimizing costs and standardizing. Partners saw deployment opportunities as enterprises transformed, migrated from legacy platforms, and looked for next-generation solutions. These projects were similar in scale to or slightly larger than Sales projects and often included additional automation work. Interviewees shared examples of typical Service project deal sizes ranging from $200,000 to $2 million or more (including deployment, advisory, and solutions development) for each of the solutions. They did explain that there could be economies of scale for deploying multiple solutions. Additionally, partners said some customers want faster deployments to achieve quicker ROI, which could lead to smaller initial projects but more follow-on work after deployment.
  Partners also said that Microsoft gave them a competitive edge when winning Service projects. An interviewee described: “With the advent and inclusion of all the out-of-the-box Copilot features, Dynamics 365 Customer Service is outperforming the competition in many cases. When you couple in the launch of Dynamics 365 Contact Center, we change the game. Dynamics 365 Contact Center is head and shoulders above its competition because there is not another full-service customer CRM platform that has all the agentic contact center feature sets in it. … It has opened an entirely new market for us … and the product is almost selling itself. It is a great opportunity.”

• Advisory services continue to rise in value. For CSS deployments, partners provide business consulting, governance, COE setup, change management, training, and related services. As with other solution areas, partners emphasized the importance of these services. An interviewee said, “The advisory side of projects is becoming more important.”

• Enterprises demand services AI agents. As with Sales, partners use their own IP, including agents, to win services deals and deliver projects faster. Similar to Power Platform, partners use agents as an overlay for customers on competing solutions, creating an entry point for future migration. Partners also deliver customization and integration work for enterprise customers.
  One interviewee described how agent-related solutions development was changing: “Twelve months ago, we had lots of hype and not enough action. Now, businesses have started to ask for agentic AI solutions. The business value and impact of agentic AI solutions is so material that we have genuine demand.”

• The Service customer relationship continues post-deployment. After deployment, ongoing offerings include monitoring, standard support, and enhancements. As partners aim for quicker deployments, managed services become more important for post-deployment revenue as they add features for enterprise customers. An interviewee said: “Managed services are an important and growing part of our business. It is a recurring revenue model. It also helps us to upsell and cross-sell more project services because we have that customer relationship.”