Microsoft now rewards usage, not sales: rewrite your partner story

Microsoft partners should stop marketing how much they sell and start marketing how much their customers use. Microsoft's October partner program update now judges four AI Business Solutions specialisations on active usage instead of the older MCV measure, with no growth target, so partner marketing that still leads with deal size is out of step with how Microsoft keeps score.

What's happening

On 22 October 2026, Microsoft posted its monthly AI Cloud Partner Program update in Partner Center. The biggest change took effect on 24 August: the Sales, Service, Finance and Supply Chain specialisations under AI Business Solutions now count eligible deployments with MAU, a usage measure, rather than MCV. Those four specialisations also no longer carry a gross growth requirement.

The same update covers a handful of housekeeping items. Partners can now withdraw a specialisation audit in Partner Center and reapply whenever they are ready, without waiting out a cooldown. The Custom Solutions for Microsoft Teams specialisation retires in November 2026. MS-102 retires on 30 November 2026, with AB-650 added to the Modernize Endpoints specialisation in its place. Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Azure Stack HCI gets a new name, Azure Local for Hybrid & Sovereign Private Cloud.

Our view

This is the most useful marketing signal Microsoft has sent partners in months, and most will treat it as admin. When the badge on your website is earned through usage, it tells buyers something they care about: the people who bought from you are still using the thing you deployed.

Buyers of sales, service, finance and supply chain systems have been burnt by projects that went live and then sat idle. They don't care how many licences a partner moved last quarter. They care whether their own team will log in next month. Microsoft has now built that question into the way it recognises partners, which gives you a credible, third-party reason to talk about adoption instead of volume.

Dropping the growth requirement matters too. In our view it opens the door for smaller, specialist partners to earn and promote these specialisations on the depth of their work rather than the size of their sales team.

What it means for Microsoft partners and B2B tech firms

If you sell Dynamics 365 and the related AI agents into sales, service, finance or supply chain teams, your proof points need to change. Logo walls and licence counts still have a place, but they no longer match the story Microsoft is telling about what a good partner looks like.

Partners with a Teams custom solutions badge have a shorter job: plan for it to come off your site, your proposals and your Marketplace listing once your enrolment reaches its anniversary date. Microsoft says existing enrolments stay active until then.

Modern Work partners should also check their skilling messaging. Any web page or capability statement that names MS-102 will date quickly after 30 November.

How to put it to work

• Swap volume for adoption. Replace "200 seats deployed" style claims with usage outcomes your customers are happy to share, such as active users after 90 days.
• Build one adoption case study a quarter. Interview a customer six months after go-live, not at launch, and lead with what their team does differently now.
• Refresh your Marketplace listing. Microsoft updated the Marketplace tags for these specialisations, so check yours reads the way buyers search.
• Clean up retiring badges and certifications. Diarise the Teams specialisation anniversary and the MS-102 retirement, then update your site, decks and email signatures.
• Brief your sales team. Give them two sentences on why a usage-based specialisation is a stronger promise than a sales-based one.

How UBE Marketing can help

UBE Marketing is a Sydney marketing agency founded by Alvin Paronda, and Microsoft partner marketing sits at the centre of what we do. Our Microsoft Partner Marketing team can rework your listings, case studies and specialisation messaging around adoption, so the badge you earned does some selling for you. If that sounds useful, get in touch.

Source

This article is UBE Marketing's opinion on Monthly Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program update, published by Microsoft Partner Center on 22 October 2026. All rights in the original belong to its publisher. Trade marks and product names belong to their owners.