Oracle is updating its cloud-based business software used by large enterprises so it can interact with artificial intelligence agents that carry out data-gathering and execution tasks on behalf of human users.
The company is making the changes to its Fusion suite, which handles core corporate functions including production planning in factories and customer collections, and planned the announcement at an event in London on Tuesday local time. The move is part of a broader shift among providers of specialized corporate software to refactor their products so they can be used by AI agents that perform tasks for human users.
Oracle's shares have fallen approximately 40% this year as investors express concern that AI tools could largely supplant complex business software. Company executives maintain that Oracle is incorporating AI tools into its offerings to keep the software competitive with those changes.
Steve Miranda, executive vice president of applications development at Oracle, described the company’s objective as simplifying how companies address business questions - for example, determining ways to make a new product design less expensive and faster to manufacture - while reducing the risk of supply chain disruption. Miranda said the data required to answer such questions is dispersed among Oracle's own applications and connected third-party systems.
According to Miranda, AI will assume tasks like data entry, aggregation and recommendation generation. Human employees will shift emphasis toward higher-value responsibilities such as negotiating with suppliers and deciding an appropriate risk tolerance for potential supply interruptions. Miranda said, "Typing in an invoice isn’t a particularly high-value skill to your enterprise or to the person you know who does that part of their job."
He added that while execution tasks - "the typing of the invoices, the typing of the purchase order" - are likely to be replaced entirely by AI, ultimate decision-making remains with humans: "Decision making is still kind of up to that human and weighing the different pros and cons of that case."
This update to Fusion is presented as an effort to enable business users to pose questions in natural language and let AI figure out how to find and assemble the underlying data spread across systems. The company frames the transition as preserving human oversight over decisions while automating lower-value operational work.
The announcement underscores tensions in enterprise software markets as vendors adapt to AI-driven workflows and as investors weigh the implications for established software business models.