Dates also differ between sources. A third-party Microsoft 365 admin blog tracking the announcement said the feature would reach general availability on July 31, 2026. Microsoft's own pages put it in August. Release dates move, so check your own tenant to see whether it's there.
What next best actions do
Customer Intent Agent was already known for suggesting questions during live chats. NBA moves that guidance into the case record. Microsoft's setup documentation says NBA extends this experience into the case workflow, which in its own words means that after a case is created or updated, the agent analyzes the case context and recommends next steps.
In practice, that covers a few things:
- One-click Copilot actions. The roadmap says these include, but aren't limited to, drafting emails, updating knowledge articles and updating case notes.
- Consolidated case attributes. Key attributes gather in one place while the representative collects details from the customer.
- Knowledge article suggestions. These let representatives dig deeper and see the reasoning behind a recommendation.
Microsoft's worked example is a customer returning a coffee machine. The agent reads emails and notes on the case, then might suggest three things:
- follow up with the customer if more confirmation is needed
- review a draft response
- resolve the case once the return is confirmed as complete
These are suggestions. Representatives review drafts and confirm resolutions themselves. Microsoft's documentation presents the feature as guidance, not autonomous case closure.
How to turn it on
The roadmap says an administrator can enable the feature for the entire organization. Microsoft's detailed procedure is a bit more involved. It is configured per experience profile.
- In Copilot Service admin center, open Support experience and select Productivity.
- Next to Intent-based suggestions, select Manage.
- Under Turn on intent-based suggestions, select Conversation content and Actions. Actions is the option that enables NBA for cases.
- Under Enable in experience profiles, choose Select experience profiles, pick one or more profiles, and save.
Prerequisites, per Microsoft:
- Intent or knowledge management must already be configured. Saving the page does not set up knowledge management for you.
- Ask a question must be enabled in the Copilot help pane.
- Connectors to external knowledge sources are optional.
Turning off intent-based suggestions, or removing it from a profile, doesn't revert shared Copilot settings.
Wider Copilot setup
Copilot for Customer Service is managed across two admin centers. In the Power Platform admin center you enable AI-powered Copilot features for an environment and manage data movement. The Copilot Service admin center handles opt-in, representative experiences, agent settings and profile-level access.
Microsoft lists these general requirements for Copilot setup:
- the System Administrator role
- licensing suited to production use
- a supported geography, or data movement across regions allowed
- supported languages for your representatives
- the Customer Service Representative role, or a custom role with the required privileges
In Copilot Service workspace, access is controlled through experience profiles. Representatives in the default profiles get Copilot features by default. You can limit features by creating a custom profile that turns on only what you want.
Caveats
- Geography. The Worldwide label doesn't guarantee availability everywhere. The feature page points to separate Microsoft geography and language reports. Microsoft's general Copilot notes say in-region availability by default covers the US, Australia, India, the UK and government cloud regions. Europe has data movement on by default. Other regions need data movement allowed before opt-in. That is general Copilot guidance, not an NBA-specific matrix.
- Empty results are possible. Microsoft says the conversation-suggestion side shows nothing when the agent can't map a conversation to a known intent. That statement is about chat suggestions, not NBA specifically. Still, it suggests the quality of your intent and knowledge setup matters.
- No performance figures. The Microsoft documentation reviewed gives no measured gains in resolution time or customer satisfaction. Run your own pilot before promising results.
- Earlier token-consumption episode. An earlier community-reported notice said Microsoft turned intent-based suggestions off by default after reports of unintended token consumption in Copilot Service workspace. Admins who had it on had to re-enable it manually. That notice predates this release, but it's a reason to watch Copilot usage and consumption after you turn on a new AI feature.
Practical rollout advice
This is general IT practice, not Microsoft guidance.
- Pilot with one experience profile before widening access.
- Confirm your intent and knowledge configuration first, because the suggestions depend on it.
- Have representatives treat drafts and resolve suggestions as proposals, not instructions.
- Test as a representative in Copilot Service workspace by opening a case and checking that the Copilot pane shows suggested actions.
The feature is useful if your intent model and knowledge base are sound. If they aren't, representatives will see little or nothing in the pane.