Agentic ERP: are classic ERP systems becoming obsolete?
"From 2027 we will no longer operate software – we will manage outcomes." That is how the channel Der ERP Checker summed up the agentic ERP debate in January 2026. I analysed six of the most discussed YouTube contributions on the topic and set the forecasts against the available figures. The result is more nuanced than either camp claims.
What agentic ERP means
A classic ERP system is a system of record: it captures what has happened. An order is entered, an invoice posted, a stock level updated. A human triggers each of those postings through an input screen.
Agentic ERP describes the shift to a system of action – the term comes from the vendor Xentral's March 2026 product announcement and describes the change most soberly. Software receives a goal and chooses the route itself. What separates this from familiar automation is latitude: a workflow follows a fixed rule, an agent decides within a frame.
Christian Segurado, a Microsoft MVP in the Dynamics field, names the consequence precisely in a May 2026 podcast:
"It is probabilistic, not deterministic." Christian Segurado on nz365guy, 11 May 2026
That identifies the decisive point for any finance function. A deterministic system returns the same result for the same input every time. A probabilistic system returns the most likely one. For an accounts payable posting that difference is substantial.
The case made by the advocates
The radical reading comes from Der ERP Checker and reaches far beyond the software. The channel condenses it into coined slogans; four of them deserve attention because they describe commercial consequences (the German originals are given in quotation marks):
- "Vom Operator zum Supervisor" – from operator to supervisor. Staff monitor outcomes instead of operating screens; in accounting that would shift the job from recording to judging.
- "Tod der Eingabemaske" – the death of the input screen. Interaction moves into speech and chat, so customer lock-in through familiar interfaces loses value and data quality gains it.
- "Autonome Supply Chain" – agents are to monitor stock levels, negotiate prices and place orders on their own.
- "Data Hygiene" – on this reading, leaving your master data untidy makes you invisible to other companies' purchasing agents.
Two qualifications belong with this. The channel labels its own statements as "personal assessment and experience". And the contributions that evidence the benefit most clearly come from the large-enterprise world: Ragnar Pitla, Enterprise AI Architect at Microsoft, cites Lumen, Honeywell and Coca-Cola in October 2025. An SME with CHF 30 million in revenue finds no comparable reference there.
What the figures say
Gartner published the most robust assessment to date in June 2025. It cuts both ways:
| Figure | Statement |
|---|---|
| over 40% | of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 – due to escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls |
| around 130 | of the thousands of agentic AI vendors are genuine in Gartner's estimate; the rest relabel assistants, RPA and chatbots ("agent washing") |
| at least 15% | of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously by 2028 – up from 0% in 2024 |
| 33% | of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028 – up from under 1% in 2024 |
Anushree Verma, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, places the current state as follows: most efforts are experiments and proofs of concept, "mostly driven by hype and are often misapplied". Her second sentence lands harder still: many use cases positioned as agentic today do not require agentic implementations at all.
That diagnosis matches the independent advisory side. Eric Kimberling of Third Stage Consulting opens the most watched contribution in this review by asking how much of the AI hype in the ERP space is actually materialising in a way that matters. Software Connect states plainly in September 2025 that truly autonomous ERP agents are "still years away" – and that is a channel which makes its living from software referrals.
What holds up today and what remains forecast
Separating shipped capability from announcement is the genuinely useful work on this topic. The six contributions produce the following picture:
| Application | Status |
|---|---|
| Natural-language queries against ERP data (SAP Joule, Microsoft Copilot) | Available |
| Agents in Microsoft Teams in place of the ERP screen | Available, setup effort substantial |
| Faster requirements gathering and fit-gap analysis in ERP projects | Available |
| Agents taking over routine in service, analysis, workflows | Partly – declared as a vision |
| Autonomous procurement with price negotiation and no approval | Forecast |
| Clerical roles disappearing from the org chart | Forecast |
What stands out is where all six contributions converge – advocates and sceptics alike. It is the data foundation. Segurado captures it in an image:
"You cannot start with the roof if you don’t have the foundation." Christian Segurado on nz365guy, 11 May 2026
The author's assessment
I answer the question in the headline with a clear no – and the reasoning is an accounting one rather than a technical one. An ERP system keeps the books. It holds the document, the audit trail and the accountability. That function requires traceability, and traceability requires determinism. A probabilistic system can propose a posting, check it and explain it. The posting itself remains the business of a system that returns the same result from the same starting position.
What does disappear is the input screen as a workplace. That alone is substantial: most of the time consumed in Swiss SME finance departments goes into recording, reconciling and assembling – tasks for which agents are mature enough today. The books themselves continue to be kept by an ERP. It moves one level back and becomes the data source the agent queries.
For Swiss SMEs an uncomfortable priority follows. Gartner's 40 per cent cancellation rate arises where companies start with the agent. Start with the master data and you win even if the radical thesis never materialises: clean data shortens the monthly close independently of any AI.
Three steps that pay off either way
Software Connect derives a preparation from the same uncertainty that I consider sound, because each of the three steps pays for itself:
- Clean up the master data. Chart of accounts, cost centres, vendors, item master. This work lowers the effort in today's close and is the precondition for any agent tomorrow.
- Settle permissions and governance. Who may see which data, who approves, what gets logged. In many SMEs that question is open even without AI.
- Pilot in a contained area. One use case, one measurable goal, one fixed deadline. Gartner recommends exactly this allocation: agents where decisions arise, automation for routine workflows, assistants for simple retrieval.
The third point separates successful initiatives from cancelled ones in practice. A use case with a measurable goal survives the first setback. An initiative aiming to rebuild the whole finance function rarely does.
The short version
- Agentic ERP shifts the ERP from system of record to system of action. Bookkeeping stays with the ERP because it requires traceability.
- Gartner expects a cancellation rate of over 40% by the end of 2027 and considers around 130 of thousands of vendors genuine.
- Available today: natural-language queries and agents in Teams. Autonomous procurement remains forecast.
- The worthwhile first step is clean master data – it pays off whether or not the agents arrive.
Read on
Sources
This article draws on the metadata and full descriptions of the YouTube contributions listed below, together with the chapter markers and quotation highlights the channels published themselves. YouTube no longer releases verbatim transcripts, so statements are attributed to their originator and marked as that person's position.
- Der ERP Checker: Why AI agents will replace ERP software (Agentic Shift) (in German), 21 Jan 2026, 21:08 min.
- Ragnar Pitla (Microsoft / Rbuild.ai): Agentic ERP Explained – What is Agentic ERP?, 8 Oct 2025, 13:44 min.
- Xentral ERP Software: Agentic ERP: how AI agents automate work in the ERP (in German), 10 Mar 2026, 2:21 min.
- nz365guy – Mark Smith with Christian Segurado: How Agentic AI Is Rewriting ERP Workflows, 11 May 2026, 28:14 min.
- Eric Kimberling, Third Stage Consulting: Cutting Through the ERP AI Hype, 7 Jul 2025, 12:14 min.
- Software Connect: The Future of ERP: AI Agents, Workflows, and Context Engineering, 10 Sep 2025, 6:44 min.
- Gartner, Inc.: Gartner Predicts Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Canceled by End of 2027, press release of 25 June 2025. GARTNER is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. The content is protected by copyright and is quoted here from the publicly available press release, with title and publication date stated.
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