If you have been quoted development work to expose Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central data to an AI agent or an outside system, that quote is worth reopening. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in Business Central now exposes all standard Microsoft APIs as tools, and it supports API queries as well. This is generally available as part of 2026 release wave 1, so it is something your team can look at today rather than plan for.
In plain terms: the connection point that lets agents and integrations read and act on your Business Central data now reaches a much broader set of standard endpoints out of the box. According to the release note, that reduces the need for custom extensions built solely to expose data that Microsoft already ships an API for.
What changed, and why the API queries part matters
There are two pieces here, and the second one is easy to skim past.
- All standard Microsoft APIs are now exposed as tools, so a developer or a maker building an integration or an agent has access to the standard surface of Business Central data and logic without a custom extension standing in the middle.
- API queries are supported, which means access to pre-aggregated, optimized datasets. Microsoft's note ties this to better performance and more accurate results in reporting and analytics scenarios.
The second point is the one that tends to matter to the people who own the numbers. Asking an agent to add up thousands of lines on the fly is a different exercise than pointing it at a dataset that has already been aggregated for that purpose. If you have tested AI tooling against Business Central and found the answers slow or inconsistent, this is the lever that speaks to that.
What it takes to use it
Here is where we stay strictly inside what Microsoft has published. The release note describes the expanded API exposure and API query support in the Business Central MCP server. It does not state which license, plan, or user type is required, whether an administrator has to switch anything on, or whether any region restrictions apply. Those are worth confirming with your license position and your environment before you build a plan or a budget around this, and we would treat any answer you get secondhand with caution until it is verified.
The release note is silent on licensing, admin enablement, and regional availability. Confirm all three against your own tenant and agreement rather than assuming the feature is simply on and included.
The decision in front of you
Most growing businesses we work with are in one of three positions on this, and each one has a different next step.
If you have a custom extension already built to expose Business Central data to something else, the question is whether it still earns its keep. Every custom extension is code you own, test, and carry through upgrades. If a standard API now covers the same ground, retiring that code is a real reduction in what you maintain.
If you have a proposal on your desk for custom API work, pause it long enough to ask a direct question: does this need exist because Microsoft has no standard API for it, or because the standard one was not previously reachable through the MCP server? Those are very different answers, and one of them just got cheaper.
And if you have been holding off on connecting agents to your ERP because the integration work looked disproportionate to the payoff, the effort side of that comparison has moved. The value side still depends on picking a use case that matters, so start with a process where slow or scattered data access is costing your team real hours.
A note on data discipline
Wider access to your system of record is useful in proportion to how well your data is governed. If your item setup, dimensions, or customer records are inconsistent today, an agent reading them through a standard API will surface that inconsistency faster and more visibly than a person would. That is not a reason to wait, but it is a reason to sequence the cleanup work alongside the integration work rather than after it.
Talking it through
If you are weighing a custom development quote, carrying extensions you would rather not maintain, or trying to work out what your license covers here, we are happy to sit down and go through it with you against your own environment. No pressure either way: sometimes the useful outcome of that conversation is deciding this one can wait.