Boasting a ‘record year of investment’ for the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, Chief Partner Officer Nicole Dezen tells CRN that the funding increases and other changes for its 2026 fiscal year, which started this month, is meant to ‘help everyone have a very fast start.’
Microsoft said it is “significantly increasing” partner funding and incentives across several key areas, including Copilot, Azure and Microsoft 365, for its new fiscal year.
Announced Tuesday at its MCAPS Start for Partners event, the tech giant is boosting enterprise customer investment funds by roughly 20 percent to enable partners to “deliver more AI design wins, migrations and Copilot deployments” for its 2026 fiscal year, which began this month, according to a blog post by Chief Partner Officer Nicole Dezen.
[Related: Microsoft CSP Program Changes: Five Things To Know]
Dezen said the funding increases and other changes represent a “record year of investment” in the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, which encompasses all resources the company’s 500,000-plus partners need to sell and support its wide range of products and services.
“This is all intended to help everyone have a very fast start to the fiscal year, tapping into what is a massive amount of innovation and investment from across the company in things like Copilot and agents across our entire stack,” she said in an interview with CRN Monday.
The partner program changes were outlined nearly two weeks after the company made its second major wave of layoffs this year, resulting in roughly 9,000 employees losing their jobs. While one report said the job cuts impacted salespeople, Dezen declined to say whether the workforce reduction touched partner-facing roles.
“Microsoft is continuing to implement organizational changes that are truly necessary to well position the company for success in a dynamic market. I don’t have anything specific to comment on for the channel business,” she told CRN.
Executives at two Microsoft channel partners told CRN that they are bullish about opportunities with the Redmond, Wash.-based company.
Michael Goldstein, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based LAN InfoTech, lauded Microsoft for doubling down on partner investments, adding that the company and Google are two vendors who need to “keep their foot down on the accelerator” for AI offerings like Copilot and Gemini because of their importance to the overall IT ecosystem.
“We want to be able to go out there and drive [these offerings] a little further, and we know that we have to invest a little more. But Copilot is changing the way we all think about AI, so we’re excited to hopefully see some more programs around that,” he said.
Chris Bogan, vice president of Houston, Texas-based Mark III Systems, said Microsoft is so “well positioned” because of its product and partner investments.
“The [Cloud Solution Provider] program, all of their other tools are great. Copilot, we think, is wonderful. Them adding more of that is just nothing but positive for us and nothing but positive for our customers,” he said.
Microsoft Boosts Copilot Funds, Reorganizes Product Areas
Microsoft is boosting investments elsewhere in the program, increasing funding for Copilot offerings under the new AI Business Solutions banner by 50 percent. AI Business Solutions, which also includes Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 products, is one of the three solution areas Microsoft has organized its products around for the new fiscal year.
A second solution area, Security, is getting a 15 percent funding boost, which Dezen called “an increase from a significant investment base,” designed “to empower partner-led engagements” for the company’s various offerings under this category.
Dezen said the creation of the three solution areas, which also includes Cloud and AI Platforms, marks a “strategic shift grounded in what customers are asking for and what’s resonating most in the market.”
Microsoft is increasing Microsoft 365 incentives by a double-digit percentage and Azure outcome-based incentives by 70 percent, the latter of which will reward partners “for expanding workloads, driving seat growth and deepening solution adoption.”
The company said it is making a roughly 20 percent funding increase for incentives in its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program too, with Dezen saying that Microsoft is “structuring this opportunity to create a more predictable and profitable environment for out partners when driving strategic customer solutions.”
“This is a scale engine,” Dezen said of the CSP program, pointing to a $777 billion total addressable market for the small and medium enterprise segment.
“CSP truly is the best motion for those customers to take advantage of all of Microsoft’s platform and all of these partner services,” she added.
New Training, Designations And Specializations
Dezen said Microsoft is adding new training initiatives for the new fiscal year, including hands-on technical sessions for partners designing and deploying agentic AI solutions using Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry.
“[Agentic AI] is the single biggest unlock we see in the business right now,” she said.
“Every single customer is asking us about agents, how they can bring agents to their business requirements, how they can use agents to solve problems,” she added. “And this is where we look to our partner ecosystem really to deliver the business value and the technical implementation that’s needed.”
The company is also adding hackathon-based training to allow partners to develop their own intellectual property, earn certifications and “deliver revenue-generating AI engagements,” according to Dezen.
Other training additions include regional in-person workshops and AI roadshows as well as CSP certification weeks and a “Skilling in a Box” initiative for distributors, which are mean to scale “pre-sales and sales skilling to thousands of resellers.”
Microsoft is introducing several new designations and specializations, including a Copilot specialization as well as designations for distributors, support and sovereign cloud.
These also include two new device-driven designations, one for OEMs building “modern, hybrid-ready” Windows devices for the commercial PC market and another for partners “selling and deploying Windows commercial devices, including Copilot+ PCs,” according to Dezen.
“There’s huge momentum in the market, both for Windows 11 as well as for Copilot+ PCs,” she said.
The company has also expanded pathways for SMB partners to gain Security and Azure designations, noting that nearly 9,000 partners have already taken advantage.
Other Program Additions, Enhancements
Other program changes include an expansion of benefits offerings for services partners. The expansion for such partners includes an increase in Copilot seats as well as access to tools like Copilot Studio, Dragon Studio and Microsoft 365 E5 Security.
Microsoft is also “enhancing benefit delivery through Modern Benefit Provisioning in Partner Center,” according to Dezen.
The chief partner officer teased further changes, saying that partners will “gain more flexibility by being able to combine or split their benefit packages across multiple tenants.” This, in turn, will enable partners “to support operations in various global locations.”
