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Infor debuts AI agents to tackle industry-specific tasks
Infor unveils role-based AI agents to automate workflows in niche sectors from dairy to automotive, as well as a new cloud migration programme to ease the transition to cloud
Infor has taken the wraps off its new suite of industry-specific artificial intelligence (AI) agents, claiming that generic AI tools are failing to deliver business value.
The new Infor Industry AI Agents, which were unveiled at a customer event in Stockholm this week, are intended to automate and manage operational workflows in manufacturing, distribution and service industries, ranging from dairy producers to automotive manufacturers.
The move aims to alleviate the challenge faced by many businesses to realise tangible returns from their AI projects. According to recent research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 95% of businesses are not generating value from their generative AI investments, despite pouring some $30m to $40m into the technology.
Infor’s approach is to integrate AI directly into the specific processes of micro-verticals, which are segments within broader industries. The agents are built on the company’s existing Industry Process Catalogs and Value Maps, which provide users with out-of-the-box understanding of niche terminology, compliance factors and key performance indicators in specific sectors.
“Companies that implement generic AI tools without industry-specific context will lose valuable time and money they often can’t afford,” said Infor CEO Kevin Samuelson. “Our new suite of solutions allows customers to harness the power of AI with purpose and precision.”
Frank Resink, executive vice-president of global professional services at Infor, noted that the prescriptive nature of the company’s industry-specific offerings also reduces implementation risk and adds value by supporting processes in areas that are highly differentiated for its customers.
Infor’s AI agents are powered by its new Agentic Orchestrator, which is built on the company’s multi-tenant cloud platform. Soma Somasundaram, Infor’s chief technology officer, said the architecture uses open standards, Amazon Bedrock for access to large language models (LLMs) such as Anthropic’s Claude, and LangChain for orchestrating multi-step agentic workflows.
“We run exclusively on Amazon Web Services, which we believe is an advantage because Amazon spent $90bn in R&D last year,” Somasundaram added. “Why not bring that into our product for the customer?” He also stressed that customer data is only used in cache and not for training the underlying LLMs.
Jennifer Terry, information systems manager at Xpress Boats, noted the potential of the new agentic AI tools. “What excites us most is not just the efficiency these tools unlock today, but the way they’re helping us think bigger and reimagine the future of our operations,” she said.
Leaping to the cloud
Recognising that the majority of AI benefits are dependent on cloud adoption, Infor also launched Leap, a cloud migration programme targeted at organisations with on-premise enterprise resource planning (ERP) deployments. The programme directly addresses common migration barriers by offering a fixed-fee, on-time delivery guarantee.
Leap also includes a cloud-readiness workshop that uses Infor’s cloud migration methodology and leverages pre-built best practices, with Infor bearing the financial risk of the project.
“If you’re deploying systems as robust as an ERP, there’s a lot of risk,” said Samuelson. “There are horror stories of cost overruns. Leap allows us to stand behind our delivery and let customers get comfortable that we will bear the risk.”
Not to be left out are Infor partners, which will be roped into the Leap programme. “We are training and enabling our partners to run the cloud-readiness workshops using our methodology, because that’s how we can create more value for customers,” said Resink.
Alongside the major announcements, Infor also unveiled AI-powered enhancements to its process mining tools, including generative AI features that automatically create contextual summaries of process performance to help identify operational bottlenecks.
Randy Yoho, IT manager at State Electric Supply, an Infor process mining customer, said the tool had cut the time to identify critical issues by 86%. “Instead of waiting weeks, we now identify critical process issues in just a day or two. That means we act faster, which has already resulted in customers receiving shipments faster, from five days to two.”
Read more about ERP in APAC
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- Business applications are at risk of being commoditised with AI increasingly becoming the new interface that lets businesses execute tasks across different systems, according to a senior SAP leader.
