Why ERP without AI no longer makes sense, says NetSuite’s Craig Sullivan

The next phase of enterprise software competition is no longer about shifting enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to the cloud. The real battle now is over 'intelligence'—whether ERP systems can move beyond recording transactions to interpreting data, flagging risk and increasingly acting on behalf of the enterprise.

Oracle NetSuite is betting that ERP’s future lies in being intelligent by default. At its annual SuiteWorld conference in October, the company unveiled NetSuite Next, a new suite of AI-driven capabilities aimed at embedding intelligence directly into finance, supply chain and operational workflows.

At the centre of this push is what NetSuite calls an “autonomous close”—a rethink of one of finance’s most time-consuming processes. Instead of compressing reconciliations and checks into the frantic days at the end of a month or quarter, the system performs these activities continuously in the background.

“With innovations like autonomous close, finance teams can move away from manual, time-intensive processes and rely on the system to handle repetitive closing activities continuously—every moment of every day,” said Craig Sullivan, senior vice president of enterprise and international products at NetSuite, in an interview with TechCircle. The payoff, he said, is that CFOs and finance leaders spend less time validating numbers and more time interpreting them, supported by real-time variance and flux reports.

Early adopters, NetSuite says, are already seeing productivity gains, particularly in finance teams long constrained by end-period bottlenecks. By shifting closing activities to an always-on model, the company argues, enterprises can improve both speed and accuracy while reducing operational stress.

The same logic is now being applied across operations. Through its Business 360 capabilities, NetSuite Next surfaces AI-driven insights directly within the ERP interface. When users log in, the system adapts dynamically, allowing them to query specific records, seek explanations for anomalies and trigger agentic workflows that can recommend—and in some cases execute—next actions.

“What we’re really doing with NetSuite Next is bringing the benefit of AI into the application in a built-in way,” Sullivan said. “Customers don’t have to adopt something new. It’s instantly part of the experience.”

That approach reflects a broader shift in enterprise expectations. As AI becomes pervasive across software categories, intelligence is no longer viewed as a premium feature or bolt-on module. “We don’t expect people in the future will want an ERP that doesn’t have AI at its core,” Sullivan said. “Why would you have an ERP if you can’t get analytics?”

For NetSuite, the idea of the “intelligent enterprise” is not defined solely by automation or speed. It is also about trust. Built on Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and a unified financial data foundation, the company says its AI capabilities are designed to be explainable—showing users where insights come from and why recommendations are made.

“Our vision of an intelligent enterprise is centred on trust, transparency and proactive intelligence,” Sullivan said. Through conversational tools such as Ask Oracle, users can interrogate data, refine prompts and ask the system to explain its reasoning, keeping humans firmly in the loop.

Scaling this strategy globally depends heavily on NetSuite’s partner ecosystem, particularly in India and the broader Asia-Pacific region. System integrators and developers are building industry-specific AI extensions for manufacturing, services and export-led businesses on NetSuite’s rebuilt cloud platform.

“Our partner ecosystem is a core part of how we bring AI-powered innovation to customers,” Sullivan said, noting that partner feedback plays a key role in identifying where AI is delivering measurable impact. With the platform now “instantly AI-enabled,” NetSuite argues it has lowered the barrier for partners to embed intelligence directly into business workflows.

As ERP continues to evolve, NetSuite is sharpening its positioning around a simple proposition: intelligence is no longer an add-on. It is fast becoming the operating fabric of the modern enterprise.