Only Las Vegas can make clear how much appearances matter. The world-renowned city of glitz and glamour again played host to the Oracle SuiteWorld 2025 conference in October, with the big topic being artificial intelligence embedded directly in your ERP. Just as important, though, is the rollout of the Redwood Experience which helps make NetSuite even better in its daily use by tweaking the user interface, so your people enjoy working with their software.
But whether AI or UX, perhaps the even bigger point is that cloud ERP is gapping on premises systems through its ‘designed in’ upgradeability and regular release cadence that leaves no system behind. This is important, because in on premises environments the stories of ERP instances 5, 10 or more years behind current release are all too common. For every one of these businesses, the advantages and practical benefits of an AI-driven world remain out of reach, or can only be attained through risky ‘bolt on’ approaches that can’t deliver the functionality or governed safety of integrated AI.
Let’s get into the AI part first, and NetSuite Next. Taking a stunning stage under the stars in the centre of an 8,000 strong audience at the opening keynote, NetSuite founder Evan Goldberg made clear that direct AI is a gamechanger. Designed to make everyday tasks faster and easier, with conversational interfaces, NetSuite’s built-in AI is called Ask Oracle.
Describing NetSuite Next as the future of NetSuite, Goldberg said it offers practical AI capabilities such as embedded conversational intelligence, agentic workflows, and (crucially- how much time do we still spend looking for information?) natural language searches. While Goldberg said Ask Oracle within NetSuite Next is more ‘jet engine than copilot’, we do have Microsoft to thank for showing how practical and useful ‘system integrated’ AI can be.
In his own words, he explained that “NetSuite Next puts AI to work for businesses by making it a natural extension of the way they already work. With AI built in, NetSuite Next can deliver powerful insights as well as autonomously complete repetitive and complex tasks, all with enterprise-level reliability.”
For us, and for every organisation depending on ERP it’s that last bit which is so important. Along with the huge promise of AI, we’ve also seen new challenges emerging. The debacle with Deloitte including ‘not necessarily accurate’ AI generated content in one of its major reports is the case in point. Enterprise-level reliability and accuracy matter in systems of record.
While Goldberg provided a high-level introduction of just how Ask Oracle works, further demonstrations on Day 2 went into more details, showing how you can simply ‘ask’ for help on various tasks – some of which are detailed and complex. Again, Microsoft’s Copilot is a relatable example of how NetSuite Next works, with every action based on your data, governed by your roles, permissions, and policies, and contextualised with your activities.
Exciting? Hugely. There wasn’t a delegate who didn’t see NetSuite Next as something big to look forward to. The applause from the thousands-strong audience was genuine and enthusiastic.
The catch? There’s always one, but in this case there are two. One is that while demonstrated live at SuiteWorld, NetSuite is still developing Next for general release, and it will only be available first to North American customers ‘within the next 12 months’. Goldberg was asked when it can be expected elsewhere including ANZ, and the expectation is that there will be a wait, perhaps longer than the USA market.
The second catch is probably the more important one. NetSuite started as Goldberg’s brainchild back in 1998, when he reenvisaged ERP from the monolithic systems which to this day remain stuck in the past. By going into cloud long before we even had decent internet, NetSuite revolutionised how we think about the software that runs business. With Next, NetSuite is yet again showing the advantages of an online, always-updated system.
In fact, because all the development takes place continuously in the background, when Next is available it literally comes at the press of a button. That’s a major upgrade without migrating, disrupting, or implementing.
Oh, and the Redwood experience? Appearances matter, in Las Vegas and right here in the ANZ region, with presentations of local customers at SuiteWorld confirming that the ‘look and feel’ of NetSuite played a role in its selection. Redwood is already rolling out, and includes visual improvements like colours, fonts, icons, and layouts so your ERP looks more like the kind of apps we choose to use personally.
Might seem small in the big AI announcement. But good looking, easy to use software makes every workday better.
