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Small and mid-sized business software vendor Oracle NetSuite this week launched a new set of tools that give its customers improved AI access to NetSuite functions and data. Customers can now connect external AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude while taking full advantage of NetSuite permissions, control and governance structures. Meanwhile a new vertical offering caters to the needs of hospitality businesses. The announcements were timed to coincide with the London stop in the vendor's SuiteConnect global tour.
NetSuite first introduced a connector based on Model Context Protocol (MCP) last summer, so the ability to plug in third-party AI models and assistants isn't new. But as we pointed out at the time, connections made using that earlier capability didn't have built-in guardrails — developers had to manually add controls to govern what the third-party agents could and couldn't see and do. This week's launch adds tools that provide pre-configured guidance, structure and controls, making it much simpler to safely add those connections. In addition to the original connector, there's now also a connector for NetSuite Analytics Warehouse, where users can work with additional datasets alongside NetSuite data.
A new 'companion' for the original AI Connector Service provides a library of ready-made, finance-specific prompt templates that are designed to work with NetSuite’s data structures, permissions and terminology, along with a collection of reusable NetSuite-specific instructions, context and best practices for use with supported AI models. There's also a selection of pre-configured roles with the appropriate access patterns for agents carrying out work on behalf of finance professionals, ranging from the CFO and Controller to analysts in AP, AR and Treasury functions.
The prompt library is one of a series of MCP Apps that provide structured interfaces such as filters, selectors and forms for interacting with NetSuite data from within a third-party AI assistant. Other examples include a Report Picker and Record Picker. These provide a more familiar, NetSuite-style point-and-click interface as an alternative to complex, text-based prompts when navigating NetSuite data, building reports or creating other actions within an AI assistant.
The new hospitality solution brings together the NetSuite business platform with Oracle offerings that handle point-of-sale and other aspects of restaurant operations. It provides a unified platform for back-office operations in single or multiple restaurant locations.
Customer adoption
Customers speaking at this week's event discussed some of the ways in which they've been connecting NetSuite data to AI models and assistants. Ben Averis, Chief Financial Officer at Yoto, a children's interactive audio platform, says that connecting NetSuite data into Claude has massively shortened the time it takes to create reports in Excel and Powerpoint:
We've been using it to do a lot of search queries et cetera, that can all happen in Claude, and then in Claude skills we can then build PowerPoints and Excels, essentially getting the data, being able to run the skill within minutes, which would have been [previously] three or four hours' worth of time. So yeah, it feels like it's some really quick wins there.
Octopus Energy, which has grown rapidly to become the UK's largest supplier of domestic electricity and gas, has seen multiple use cases for connecting AI to NetSuite data, and is also bringing agentic AI to its procure-to-pay processes. Malcolm Finn, Group Financial Controller, says the emphasis has been on applying the tech to solve business problems:
[It's] intent first, rather than AI first. We're trying to think, what can we solve? How can we intelligently use AI?
Evan Goldberg, CEO of NetSuite, believes it's important for customers to experiment with AI and understand what it can do for them. He draws a parallel between the impact of AI today and the rise of cloud computing when NetSuite was founded:
This moment demands more than incremental innovation. It calls for the same reinvention that we sparked 28 years ago when we pioneered the cloud. Back then, we had to convince businesses that the cloud wouldn't disrupt their business, it actually would transform their business. Companies that moved early gained advantages that compounded over time.
The same is true now. Businesses that build AI into the core of how they operate... will set themselves up to outperform in ways that compound for years to come. This is not just about moving faster, it's about creating the condition so businesses can operate at a completely different altitude.
Conversational interface
NetSuite plans to make its MCP tools available to any MCP-compliant agent or assistant, says Goldberg, explaining that opening up access in this way is in line with vendor's established principles:
NetSuite has always been about democratizing access to your business data, making it easier for people all over the business to access it, developing a very open interface so that people can build applications on top of NetSuite. So this is just really the next extension of that.
Does that introduce a risk that people will start using other apps for their day-to-day routines in place of NetSuite, I wonder? He responds:
No one knows what the future is going to hold. We feel confident that, with our 44,000 customers and all the knowledge that we've built into our ecosystem about how to best use business systems for those customers, that that's valuable. But, yeah, how people use it is going to change, and we'll see also, I think, all kinds of incredible new innovations come out of it. Times of great change like this are both stressful and exciting at the same time.
Change is afoot for those users who will still be spending much of their working day in NetSuite, with a new conversational interface fronted by the Ask Oracle AI assistant set to roll out in the coming months. Unlike some other vendors, NetSuite isn't aiming to be the gateway to all enterprise information — the focus, says Goldberg, is on making Ask Oracle the primary interface for NetSuite and for those who spend their working day in NetSuite, whereas others will likely use other AI assistants as their primary interface for work and thus access NetSuite from there. But there's still no plan to switch from the current seat-based licensing model to the consumption-based model that many vendors are introducing for their AI capabilities. For now it's a matter of wait-and-see, says Goldberg:
It is going to be interesting to see how people use it, what kind of resources it consumes that they're being used. I think there's a question, a lot of questions, where it's just unknown right now, how AI is going to play out. Does it mean fewer people are going to be using ERP systems and the like, or does it mean more people are going to be using them? I mean, we just don't really know yet.
My take
This week's announcements go a long way towards answering the concerns we raised last year when NetSuite first announced its MCP connector. Much-needed scaffolding is now available to shortcut the connection process in the form of prompt templates, pre-configured access profiles, and tooling that lets customers embed familiar elements of the NetSuite interface into their AI assistants and agents. No doubt partners will add further tools and apps. While some customers have already been testing out use cases for AI assistants and agents that can work with their NetSuite data, many more will now be emboldened to join in.
By encouraging customers to use its own tooling, NetSuite is also making sure that they continue to rely on its own data models and processes. The tooling surfaces all of the context that surrounds data, roles and processes in NetSuite — what diginomica calls its System of Knowledge — tbe business context that makes sense of the data and gives it meaning. This, in large part, is where the value resides that justifies NetSuite's subscription fees, and so it's in the vendor's interest for its customers to use these tools.
Nevertheless, Goldberg is right to say there's much we don't yet know about how the impact of AI will play out. The new NetSuite Next conversational interface was announced last fall but is yet to roll out to customers — UK users can expect to see it in the next 6-12 months, the vendor said this week. This is a huge change in how users will interact with the application — and is in line with what we're seeing other vendors doing too — and no one knows what the long-term impact will be on usage patterns. The one certainty is that there's a lot of change on the way in the next year or two, and vendors need to continue supporting their customers through this transition while watching carefully to see how they'll adapt to it.