- Feature
- Profile slow Business Central sessions with AI agents
- Availability
- Generally available (October 2026)
- Industry focus
- Consumer goods wholesale (toys, gifts, seasonal products)
For wholesalers of toys, gifts and seasonal goods, the year is decided in a few weeks. When retailers place their big pre-season and holiday orders, Business Central must process them fast. A slow order screen or a sluggish posting routine at that point means missed shipping slots and unhappy customers. Business Central 29.0 brings AI help to finding the cause.
The industry challenge
Performance problems in wholesale tend to follow a pattern:
- Users report that "the system is slow" when releasing orders or posting shipments
- The slowdown appears only with real volumes or certain customers
- Several extensions run at once, such as pricing, EDI and warehouse integrations
Business Central has a performance profiler that can show where time goes in AL code. But capturing the right session and interpreting the profile takes specialist skill. Many wholesalers don't have that skill in-house, and their partners may not be available at short notice during peak.
The result is guesswork. Teams disable features, add hardware or ask users to work around the problem, without knowing the real cause.
What Microsoft delivered in Business Central 29.0
According to Microsoft, developers and administrators can now investigate slow Business Central sessions with an AI agent, instead of manually collecting and interpreting performance profiles. The agent can:
- Capture the affected session
- Identify expensive AL call paths
- Summarize whether CPU or managed-memory use is contributing to the problem
Microsoft says this guided workflow shortens the time from a reported performance problem to code-level findings, even when the user isn't already debugging the session.
Where the value shows up
| Business area | Impact for a consumer goods wholesaler |
|---|---|
| Peak readiness | Performance issues found and fixed before the rush |
| Order throughput | Faster order release and shipment posting |
| Support efficiency | Less specialist time spent collecting and reading profiles |
| Partner conversations | Evidence points to the exact extension or code path |
| Cost control | Fixes target the real cause instead of extra workarounds |
The strongest benefit is targeting. Knowing that a specific pricing extension's call path is consuming most of the CPU during order release turns a vague complaint into a clear request to the right vendor.
A worked scenario
Consider a wholesaler that supplies independent toy shops and garden centres (an illustrative example). In September, during the pre-Christmas ordering window, sales order release slows sharply for large retail customers.
The IT administrator asks the AI agent to profile the slow session. The agent captures a release for one of the affected customers and finds an expensive call path in a third-party promotions pricing extension. It recalculates every discount line several times. The summary shows the problem is CPU-bound, not memory-related.
The administrator sends the findings to the extension vendor, which issues a fix within a week. Order release times return to normal before the November peak.
Adoption considerations
- Profile before peak. Run profiling on your busiest processes with realistic volumes weeks before the season starts.
- Use realistic data. Performance problems often only appear with real customers, items and price structures.
- Share findings with vendors. Call-path evidence helps app publishers fix problems quickly.
- Restrict access. Limit who can profile sessions, since profiles can reveal business data and process details.
- Track results over time. Keep a record of findings and fixes to spot recurring problems.
The bottom line
For seasonal wholesalers, system performance isn't an IT metric. It's a revenue metric. AI-assisted profiling in Business Central 29.0 shortens the path from "it's slow" to "here's why," without needing a performance specialist on hand. That makes it a practical tool for protecting the weeks that matter most.
If you're preparing your Business Central system for a busy season, it's worth planning a performance review with an experienced adviser.
Source: Microsoft roadmap 573335