How to Deliver AI Training for Dynamics 365

Four in five U.S. employees want more AI training, but only 38% of executives are actively helping their workforce become AI-literate. Source

More CEOs report investing in AI technology itself than in developing the workforce skills to use it. For management and HR leaders designing employee training programmes, this is the starting condition: organisations are deploying tools faster than they are preparing people to use them.

Where traditional training methods lag, the skills gap widens at the pace of AI adoption itself.

The Skills Gap Is Widening Faster Than Hiring Can Close It

Hiring alone cannot solve a skills gap that is moving faster than recruitment cycles. Four in five executives surveyed by the IBM Institute for Business Value believe generative AI will change employee roles and skills. That change applies at every level of the organisation.

For a wider upskilling strategy for Dynamics Apps, read our guide:

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Upskilling Strategy for Dynamics 365: A Guide L&D Leaders

Small and Medium enterprises that invest in Dynamics applications will not see real return on their investment until their team has fully learned to use the new applications. The tech stack is only one part of the equation that determines how much efficiency and productivity companies can gain by implementing new software. Upskilling employees is equally important, but in most cases, IT leaders don't focus on employee training, and they assume the team will learn as they go once the new software

HR leaders need to shift their framing from "hire for the skills we need" to "build the skills we already have." That means assessing what technical and non-technical capabilities exist across the organisation, identifying where AI-driven process changes will hit first, and creating structured reskilling paths before those processes change.

Start with a Skills and Readiness Assessment for Your AI Training Program

The first step in any AI employee training programme is understanding what skills already exist before creating reskilling opportunities. Without that baseline, training resources get allocated by assumption, typically to the employees who are most visible, most vocal, or most senior, rather than the employees whose roles are changing fastest.

A readiness assessment serves two functions. It shows HR leaders where the actual gaps are: data literacy, prompt engineering, and process adaptability, and it gives employees a clear signal that the organisation takes their development seriously, which builds trust.

Technical Skills Versus Digital Literacy

Technical AI skills and general digital literacy are not the same gap: general digital literacy is the foundation layer. This capability has to be in place before AI-specific training lands.

Proficiency in data and digital literacy enables employees to interact with AI tools critically, to understand that generative AI produces potential answers based on data patterns, not verified facts, and to apply their own judgment to the output.

Above that foundation layer sit AI-specific technical skills: understanding how large language models work, how to write effective prompts, how to evaluate AI-generated outputs for accuracy and bias, and how to integrate AI tools into specific workflows.

KPMG's GenAI 101 programme, for example, introduces key AI terminology, AI implementation in the workplace, ethics and risk, and prompt mechanics. Employees who understand the risks and limitations of generative AI before they use it are more likely to use it responsibly and more likely to trust the technology long-term.

Soft skills belong in the assessment, too. Creativity, adaptability, and collaboration become more valuable as AI handles routine tasks. An AI literacy training programme that focuses entirely on tool competency and ignores human judgement skills is building the wrong half of the capability set.

Build Cross-Functional Teams Before You Build an AI Upskilling Curriculum

The curriculum comes after the discovery. Trek Bicycle's approach illustrates the sequence clearly: before building any training content, its Advanced Technologies team spent several months interviewing every department about how AI could improve their specific work. The output was a list of nearly 40 concrete AI use cases, each one grounded in real workflow problems identified by the people doing the work. That list became the foundation for prioritised development — with each project designed around current employees' roles and built with input from the relevant department.

The same logic applies to a mid-market organisation running Dynamics 365. A cross-functional discovery team pulling in Finance, Operations, Sales, and HR representatives alongside IT will identify specific pain points that Copilot features could address directly. That makes the training concrete rather than theoretical, and it means employees are learning AI skills in the context of processes they already own.

Design Generative AI Training for Staff That Adapts to the Individual

Generic one-size-fits-all training programmes are the wrong format for AI upskilling. The future of reskilling uses AI to take each employee's experience, role, and existing skills into account, producing a personalised and relevant learning pathway rather than a prescriptive course.

Generative AI makes personalised learning at scale achievable in a previously impossible way, using data on each learner's progress and existing capability to adapt the content they receive next. A Finance manager using Copilot in Dynamics 365 Finance has a different learning path than a warehouse supervisor whose work is being changed by AI-driven inventory recommendations. Building a single curriculum for both is less efficient than building role-specific pathways with a shared foundation layer covering AI ethics, risk, and data literacy.

Next Steps

If your organisation runs Dynamics 365 and you are planning an AI readiness programme, the Copilot features already in your licence are the logical starting point for hands-on training. Explore our Employee Training programs to discuss a tailored upskilling programme for your team: Employee Training.