Episode 515: Stop Coding, Start Architecting: How AI Is Reshaping the BC Developer Role

In a rapidly evolving digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking ways to improve efficiency and growth. In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and I had the opportunity to speak with Mike Morton, Vice President, Microsoft Dynamics Business Central, about the impressive growth of Business Central, and how businesses can automate routine tasks, allowing employees to focus on strategic initiatives. Key Factors Behind Business Central's Growth - Strong Customer Feedback: Positive feedback from customers has fueled ongoing development and enhancements of Business Central. - Global Reach: While Europe has traditionally been the strongest market, the U.S., South America, and Asia are emerging as significant growth vectors. - AI Integration: The incorporation of AI features has positioned Business Central as a leader in business management solutions. The Role of AI in Business Central As we look to the future, AI is becoming a central theme in Business Central's strategy. AI is not just a buzzword; it's a transformative technology that can enhance operational efficiency and open new avenues for growth. What’s Next for Business Central and AI? Looking ahead, industry leaders emphasize the importance of adopting AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot to harness the full potential of AI in business operations. - Business Central is on a growth trajectory, driven by strong customer feedback and AI integration. - AI is reshaping how businesses operate, from efficiency gains to enhanced customer interactions. - To leverage AI effectively, businesses should start with clear objectives and utilize the right tools. In conclusion, Business Central is not just a business management tool; it is a and by embracing AI and leveraging its capabilities, businesses can unlock new growth opportunities and drive greater efficiency. Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad are joined by Volodymyr Dvernytskyi — a BC developer from Ukraine, a recent Microsoft MVP, and the creator of many open-source tools — for a grounded, practical look at what AI-assisted AL development actually looks like in the real world. Volodymyr doesn't sugarcoat it: AI has made code cheaper to produce, but that speed comes with a trap that most developers aren't talking about yet. What happens when you generate thousands of lines of code you didn't write and don't fully understand? And who's responsible when that code breaks in production? The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Volodymyr reveals what's been happening to his open-source repositories — a flood of AI-generated pull requests from contributors who don't understand the problems they're trying to solve. But the episode isn't all cautionary tales. Volodymyr lays out a clear progression for anyone looking to get started: from IDE-based agents to CLI tools to MCPs, with a critical reminder that understanding Business Central's functionality matters now more than ever. Brad shares a testing experiment that produced eye-opening results on an old production project, and the group lands on a closing insight that reframes the entire "what do we do with the free time" debate. If you think AI development means less work, this episode will change your mind — it means better work, and the developers who understand that distinction are the ones who'll thrive.Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris, and Brad welcome back Natalie Karolak — the BC Docs Librarian herself — for a conversation that goes far beyond the usual AI hype cycle and straight into the questions most people are thinking, but few are saying out loud. It starts with a deceptively simple observation: Natalie noticed that blog after blog in the BC community is starting to look and sound the same, and she's not the only one. But what happens when you pull on that thread? The conversation quickly turns into something deeper — if AI were trained on how humans write, how can we even say what's AI-generated anymore? The group wrestles with a paradox that might sound familiar: we're now using AI to summarize the flood of AI-created content. So, who's reading anything? And where does your voice go when everyone's content starts sounding identical? Natalie drops a line that stops the conversation cold — AI is giving us more possibilities while quietly taking away our control. Whether you're a content creator wondering if it's even worth publishing anymore, someone feeling the pressure to adopt tools you're not sure you trust, or just quietly wondering if anyone outside the tech bubble even cares about AI, this episode will make you feel a lot less alone. And Natalie's closing thought on what we're all losing might be the thing that sticks with you longest.Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad sit down with Stefan Maron — two-time Microsoft MVP, open-source powerhouse, and the mind behind the BC History repo and LinterCop — for a conversation that will make you rethink everything about your development workflow. Stefan casually reveals that he barely opens VS Code anymore, running nearly 100% AI-generated code across multiple projects simultaneously from nothing but terminal windows. But how does he trust what the AI produces? That's where it gets interesting — Stefan has built a proprietary code analyzer mapped to ISO 5055 international coding standards. What drove him to create it, and what is he finding in AI-generated extensions headed for production? You'll want to hear the answer. The conversation takes an even wilder turn when Stefan describes his quest to run Business Central on Linux without Windows. And just when you think the tooling talk can't get more creative, wait until you hear how he's bringing test-driven development back from the dead to solve the trust problem with AI-generated tests. Is human-readable code heading for obsolescence? Stefan's workflow might just be the preview of what's coming for all of us.Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris, and Brad welcome back Dmitry Katson — a 20-year Business Central veteran, 10-year AI practitioner, and creator of CentralQ — for what might be the most eye-opening breakdown of how AI works that you'll hear this year. Dmitry walks through the mechanics piece by piece: what a large language model really does (predicts the next word — that's it), what an agent is (an LLM working in a loop with tools), and why your agent has zero memory between calls. His analogy is unforgettable — every time you send a message, the model is born, reads your conversation, answers, and dies. The next message? Born again with no memory of its past life. From there, the conversation takes fascinating turns: why the same prompt in GitHub Copilot and Claude Code can produce different results (it's the framework, not the model), how Dmitry built custom MCPs to dig through a decade of personal emails for a visa application, why voice mode is no longer speech-to-text but true audio-to-audio generation, and a mind-bending experiment where scientists digitally recreated a fruit fly's brain — neurons, connections, and all — and watched it come alive. Whether you're just getting started with AI or deep in the agentic development world, Dmitry's clarity will recalibrate how you think about every tool you use.Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad welcome back Søren Alexandersen, Product Manager on the Business Central engineering team at Microsoft, for one of the most candid conversations the show has ever had. Søren opens up about the toll the AI hype cycle took on him personally — the imposter syndrome, the feeling of being left behind while everyone else seemed to have it figured out. What he discovered was something he calls pluralistic ignorance: nobody had it figured out, but nobody was saying so either. During his time away, a weekend vibe coding project — a vinyl collection app — reignited his creative spark and changed how he thinks about AI entirely. Now back and re-energized, Søren shares the practical ways he's integrated AI into his work. The conversation also dives into what's next for the BC Payables Agent. Whether you're deep in the AI wave or quietly wondering if the train left without you, Søren's closing advice says it all: defend your right to slowness. Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad are joined by Cristian Nicola and Alfredo Iorio for a spirited debate that every Business Central partner and customer needs to hear. With AI reshaping how quickly consultants can deliver, is the traditional billable-hour model still the right model—or is it time for something new? Cristian makes a passionate case for subscription-based services, arguing that predictable pricing and compounding relationships are what SMB customers actually want. Alfredo brings a different angle, drawing on experience with organizations ranging from small teams to Accenture-scale engagements to show where fixed-price, time-and-materials, and hybrid models each shine. Along the way, you'll hear why a delivery driver's license once changed the entire tone of a warehouse meeting, what a $50 million failed SAP implementation teaches us about risk, and why the consultant who finishes fastest might be punishing themselves the most. Whether you're a solo partner figuring out your pricing or a customer trying to understand what you're really paying for, this one's for you.Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad sit down with Milan Milincevic to explore how he's transforming his team of five developers into a fully agentic development operation using Claude Code. Milan shares the practical steps behind building standardized agent configurations and rules — inspired in part by the BC Code Intelligence MCP — so that every team member can produce consistent, production-ready output. The conversation leads into real-world results, including a striking example in which a change order originally estimated at 24 hours was completed in just over 1 hour using agentic development. They also tackle the growing questions in the industry: how should partners rethink billing when AI makes developers dramatically more productive? What happens to junior developers who haven't built deep functional knowledge yet? And what's the next frontier — can AI handle Word layouts and reports? Whether you've already started experimenting with agentic coding or you're still on the sidelines, this episode is packed with practical insights and honest conversation about where BC development is headed. Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad sit down with Microsoft MVP Tobias Fenster for a wide-ranging conversation about where the Business Central ecosystem is heading. They get into the Business Central MCP server, breaking down how it works, how it's configured, and why it changes how partners and end users interact with their ERP data. From there, the conversation shifts to what AI means for the developer's role — whether traditional PTEs still make sense, where the functional and technical skill sets need to meet, and why knowing the application has never mattered more than it does right now. The trio wraps up with a question that's hard to shake: if software can be built in a couple of hours and thrown away when the task is done, what does that mean for the market — and for all of us?Send us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/

One developer decided to stop guessing which AI model is best for AL coding — and built a system to find out. In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Brad and Kristoffer sit down with Torben Leth, the creator of CentralGage, an open-source benchmarking tool that ranks LLMs specifically on their ability to write AL code for Business Central.Torben walks through how he built an automated testing pipeline that gives each model multiple passes, compiles the output, runs pre-built AL tests, and scores everything from zero to 100. What he discovered about why developers swear by completely different models might change how you think about your own setup — and he's found a way to use those failures to patch a cheaper model's blind spots so it rivals the top performers.Plus: gamertags embroidered on wedding suits, chili plants managed by Home Assistant, and the philosophical question nobody in this space can seem to answer — should we even try to keep up?Find Torben: blog.sshadows.dk | LinkedIn | X: @SshadowsCentralGage: ai.sshadows.dkSend us Fan MailSupport the show#MSDyn365BC #BusinessCentral #BC #DynamicsCornerFollow Kris and Brad for more content:https://matalino.io/biohttps://bprendergast.bio.link/