At Oracle AI World in Las Vegas, the software giant has been showcasing new agentic artificial intelligence (AI) features within its Fusion Cloud Applications Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite, and other parts of the Fusion Cloud product line-up.
Built in Oracle AI Agent Studio for Fusion, the agents will embed within finance processes to realise productivity gains, enhance business performance, and help accounts teams stay compliant with the various regulatory regimes they must adhere to.
Speaking to Computer Weekly in advance of the supplier’s announcements this week, Oracle Applications vice president Hari Sankar said that business financial functions can benefit hugely from AI.
“Firstly, accounting is governed by rules, the focus is compliance, the focus is ensuring things are done right [and] that’s a big part of the role of finance,” said Sankar. “I want to make sure that I sign on the dotted line saying these numbers are accurate that I’m complying with rules and regulations.
“That will never change but if you look at how it is performed today it’s a very labour intensive process so we believe there’s a lot of opportunity for automation.”
Sankar continued: “Secondly, a lot of accounting work tends to be back-end loaded at the end of the month or quarter. There are a lot of adjustments, reconciliations, all that needs to be done [and] these adjustments and reconciliations need to be documented because they need to be auditable.
“What AI agents give you is an opportunity to take those processes from a back-end fire drill to a set of continuous processes that happen throughout each quarter.”
Rondy Ng, Oracle executive vice president of applications development, added: “Oracle is ushering in a new era of agent-driven finance, where AI assistants turn fragmented, complex, staff-heavy processes into proactive, continuous operations that free teams to focus on judgment and strategic outcomes.
“Finance leaders gain a step change in operational efficiency and real-time business insights to help drive faster decisions and close cycles, stronger compliance and auditability, and healthier working capital.”
The new agents are prebuilt and integrate natively with both Fusion Cloud ERP and Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) at no extra cost to the customer.
The new agents include Payables Agent to help manage inbound invoices, Ledger Agent to help improve overall financial management and improve visibility, Planning Agent to help finance teams improve their planning processes, and Payments Agent to help optimise outbound payments.
Customer insight: Choctaw Indian nation uses Fusion AI
Although it is yet to venture down the agentic path, one of the US’ largest Indian nations, the 250,000-strong Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is incorporating Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications into its workflows, and has been using various embedded Fusion AI features to automate various processes and goals.
With roots dating back centuries the Oklahoma Choctaw operate as a sovereign nation and as such the tribal administration is responsible for running a range of programmes in areas such as education, healthcare, and housing. The nation even has an independent judiciary dating back to the 1830s.
The tribe also oversees a range of business activities, operating casinos, resorts and restaurants, and agriculture and farming.
The Choctaw government turned to Oracle’s AI services out of a desire to streamline its business processes, expand its capabilities and offer an evolving range of services to its members.
“For sovereign nations, leadership means planning for future generations. Embracing AI is key to building a strong foundation that supports our values, drives economic growth, and secures our long-term success,” said Emily Crow, Choctaw Nation IT director of enterprise services.
“With Oracle Fusion Applications, we’ve been able to automate key business processes, improve insights, and help grow the next generation of leaders. We’ve already adopted over 40 generative AI capabilities and look forward to leveraging more of Oracle’s AI agents and the AI Agent Studio to better support our people and improve operational efficiency as we continue to expand,” she said.
“With broad and complex operations, it’s often challenging for tribal nations to oversee business and workforce data across multiple industries while also meeting unique regulatory requirements,” said Steve Miranda, executive vice president of applications development at Oracle.
“With Oracle Fusion Applications, the Choctaw Nation has been able to take advantage of advanced AI capabilities to increase productivity, streamline critical business processes, cultivate the next generation of leaders, and set the stage for a future of innovation and growth.”
The Choctaw IT team is using Oracle Fusion Cloud AI features in two core areas, finance and human resources.
On the HR side, seeking to improve the experience for its 13,000-plus employees, generate more insightful data on its workforce, and reduce time-consuming manual processes, it is now using AI-powered features in Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM).
These features include agentic capabilities to support employees in areas such as goal-setting and performance reviews, and career and skills development guidance and opportunity discovery.
The organisation is already realising benefits in several areas – beyond mere time-savings it said it was now able to scale career growth conversations more broadly across its employee base.
Turning to financial matters, the Choctaw Nation is using Fusion Cloud ERP in the service of increasing productivity, reducing costs and improving financial controls and is already using embedded AI capabilities to streamline its invoice processing. It also hopes to implement more AI-powered features such as predictive cash forecasting and narrative reporting.
In addition to all this, the Choctaw Nation is also spinning up Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Generative AI to support translation between English and Choctaw, and preserve and grow its pre-Colombian language, which has fewer than 300 living speakers.
