The BC TechDays in Antwerp are one of the events I particularly look forward to every year. Not only because Microsoft provides an in-depth look at the future development of Business Central, but also because the international developer community comes together there and speaks very openly about opportunities, challenges and, sometimes, things that are not quite working as they should yet. There were plenty of interesting sessions this year. Artificial intelligence was everywhere, of course. That was hardly surprising. What did surprise me, however, was how clearly another theme ran through almost every session: it is not only Business Central that is changing – the role of the developer will also change fundamentally over the next few years.
Tomorrow’s Developer Will Write Less Code
One of the first sessions illustrated this idea particularly well. The speaker showed us his own workspace. In the past, it essentially consisted of a development environment and perhaps a Jira board. Today, he works with several AI agents in parallel, monitors their results and only intervenes when something starts heading in the wrong direction. I thought that was a very fitting picture. Developers will, of course, continue to develop software. But they will no longer write every single line themselves. Instead, they describe requirements, review results and coordinate different agents that support them in their work.
You could say that the developer is increasingly evolving from coder to orchestrator. And that idea ran through almost every session.
AI Won’t Replace Developers – It Will Change Their Work
Over the past few months, there has been plenty of discussion about whether AI will eventually replace developers. After the TechDays, my answer to that question would be a very clear “no”. From my perspective, the much more interesting question is: How will a developer’s day-to-day work change? Particularly in the Business Central environment, it is already becoming clear that technical expertise alone is no longer enough. Developers need to understand business processes. They need to understand why a customer has a particular requirement and what impact a change could have on purchasing, warehouse operations, production or financial accounting. That is exactly why I believe process knowledge will become even more important than it is today. An AI agent can already generate the actual code remarkably well. But the decision about what code should be created in the first place still lies with a human.
Agents Aren’t Magic – They’re More Like Very Capable Colleagues
One term that seemed to appear in almost every other session at the TechDays was Agentic AI. I think many people imagine something highly complex when they hear it. In reality, it can be explained quite simply. Think of an agent as a very well-trained colleague. You give it a task, it works through that task independently and returns a result. Sometimes it completes the task perfectly. Sometimes it needs a small correction or some additional information. That is increasingly how developers will work as well. They describe tasks, review results and provide agents with the information they need. It is a completely different way of working compared with just a few years ago.
If you would like to explore the topic in more detail, our article on the difference between AI assistants, analytical AI and agents explains why not every type of AI serves the same purpose.
MCP Was One of the Major Topics
Another term that came up in many of the sessions was MCP (Model Context Protocol). Put simply, MCP makes it easier for different AI systems to communicate with applications. Instead of developing a separate integration for every individual piece of software, it provides a common language through which information can be exchanged. This opens up some interesting possibilities for Business Central. At the same time, there was repeated emphasis on the importance of security. An agent should only be able to access the information it actually needs. Not everything that is technically possible should necessarily be made available. I found this discussion refreshingly pragmatic as well. The aim was not to use as much AI as possible, but to use it sensibly and in a controlled way.
Microsoft Is Taking AI to Its Logical Conclusion
I also found it interesting to see just how consistently Microsoft is developing its entire platform. Copilot, agents, Copilot Studio, Logic Apps and Business Central – the individual products are becoming increasingly interconnected. You can see that Microsoft is not simply building isolated features, but developing an overall concept. For us as a Business Central partner, this means that AI will no longer be an additional module in the future. Step by step, it will become a natural part of everyday work. That is exactly why we at OTE are already exploring agents in depth and gaining our first practical experience with them. After all, you need to test these possibilities yourself before you can provide customers with meaningful guidance on how to use them.
There Was Plenty of Interesting News Beyond AI Too
Of course, the event was not exclusively about AI. Among other things, Microsoft announced plans to replace the familiar RDLC reports with Word reports in the long term. New options were also presented for making data migrations significantly more flexible. In future, this should make it easier to migrate data from systems that do not have a direct Business Central or Navision background. These are developments we are following with great interest, particularly for larger migration projects.
Why I Enjoy Going to Antwerp Every Year
Alongside the technical topics, it is above all the atmosphere that makes the BC TechDays special for me. The event remains strongly community-driven. Microsoft has a much greater presence today than it did a few years ago, while the open exchange of ideas and experiences has remained. Problems can be discussed openly, critical questions are actively encouraged and many of the sessions benefit from people sharing their experiences candidly. Antwerp itself also plays its part. The city has a charm of its own in summer. After the sessions, there is enough time to walk around the city together, eat Belgian waffles, try a beer or two and continue the day’s many conversations in a more relaxed setting.
For me, it is precisely this combination that makes the TechDays so enjoyable.
My Takeaways
If I had to reduce the two days of the event to a single thought, it would be this: The future does not belong to the developer who writes the most code. It belongs to the developer who understands problems best. AI will take on an increasing share of the actual programming work over the coming years. But that does not mean developers will become less important.
Quite the opposite. Developers who understand business processes, can interpret requirements correctly and know how to use agents effectively will play an even more important role in the future than they do today. And that is exactly why I am looking forward to the years ahead. Not because AI is changing everything, but because it gives us the opportunity to focus more closely on what software projects have always really been about: developing good solutions for our customers.
