May brings a busy stretch for the xMonthly team and a lot of news worth sharing. From a packed few days in Orlando at Directions North America 2026 to two significant Microsoft releases that affect how your clients license and use AI, this xMonthly Times edition covers the moments that matter and points you toward the next steps.
Directions NA 2026: What Happened in Orlando and What Comes Next
Orlando delivered. The xMonthly team spent several days on the floor at Directions North America 2026 meeting with Microsoft partners, walking through the AI Cloud Tour Builder live, and having the kind of conversations that turn interest into action.
The headline from the trip: we activated over 50 AI Cloud Tours for partners on the spot, through a two-minute process that partners watched, understood, and wanted for themselves. No lengthy onboarding. No technical setup. Two minutes from signup to a live, branded tour ready to share with clients.
If you missed us in Orlando, the same two-minute process awaits you on the xMonthly site right now! You can also watch our demo video, linked below, for a live walkthrough of the builder.
Agent 365: Microsoft’s Newest Play in the AI Space
Microsoft’s first-party agents have moved well past concept stage, and the pace of development continues to accelerate. Sales agents, payables agents, and expense agents each address specific functionality gaps within Business Central by embedding Copilot capabilities directly into familiar workflows. Partners with clients running Business Central should treat these agents as a concrete, near-term opportunity rather than a future roadmap item.
Microsoft’s new release of Agent 365 speaks to that broader push to bring agentic AI capabilities directly into the tools businesses already use. Agent 365 allows organizations to build, deploy, and manage AI agents across Microsoft 365 workflows, automating tasks that previously required manual coordination across platforms.
For partners, Agent 365 opens a new conversation with existing clients about how AI can reduce operational friction without requiring a full infrastructure overhaul. For clients already running Microsoft 365, the entry point to Agent 365 starts with a licensing conversation.
The xMonthly team can walk you through exactly where Agent 365 fits within your clients’ current licensing picture and where upgrades make sense.
Microsoft 365 E7: What the New Tier Means for Your Clients
Microsoft has introduced Microsoft 365 E7 as the new top tier of the Microsoft 365 enterprise lineup, sitting above E5 and bundling advanced security, compliance, and AI capabilities into a single SKU. For organizations that previously purchased E5 alongside separate add-ons for Copilot or advanced compliance tools, E7 consolidates the stack and, in many cases, changes the cost math in favor of upgrading.
Partners with enterprise clients on E3 or E5 should review current licensing configurations before clients encounter the E7 conversation elsewhere. The partners who lead the E7 discussion protect the relationship and capture the upsell.
The xMonthly team offers a free licensing review to help partners map their clients’ current environments against the E7 opportunity.
