Innovation is what drives the future, and it drives our partnership with Epicor. Which is why we attended Epicor Insights 2025 to find out where things are going in this evolving ecosystem. If you use Epicor…or are considering an ERP…then it’s worth learning a bit about our and their insights for the future.
What’s Next with ERP: Key Takeaways from Epicor Insights 2025
The focus of Epicor Insights 2025 was on agentic AI. Epicor’s CEO, Steve Murphy, discussed AI and the fact that Epicor is approaching integrating AI vertically, focusing on those existing Make, Move, and Sell verticals. With the current challenges that manufacturers are facing, particularly around realigning supply chains overnight due to tariffs, and how AI can be used to respond to these challenges if used correctly. Murphy mentioned that Epicor values the impact of AI and how it is an accelerator to help people gain insights into the data within an ERP, versus a tool that would replace them.
Epicor also unveiled Epicor Prism and Epicor Grow AI. The latter covers more than 200 use cases, while Epicor Prism can now integrate with Epicor Industry ERP Cloud, including Epicor Prophet 21, and Epicor Kinetic (which is our specialty).
This means our Kinetic customers can now experience faster employee onboarding, enhance decision making with rapid visual analysis, streamline information retrieval, and more. And Grow AI provides predictive AI modeling. Our Director of Operations and Advanced Support, Jason Claggett, had this to say: “Epicor showcased their AI solution, ‘Prism, ‘ that is aimed to empower the workforce.”
They also added a new Carbon Cost Rollup solution to Kinetic to support carbon tracking and treat CO2 emissions as currency.
Introduction – Why Epicor Insights 2025 Matters
Epicor Insights 2025 is a significant conference with around 4,000 attendees – large for a company-specific conference and an impactful event with 45 extended education sessions and 85 hands-on labs.
This allows customers, partners, and influencers to interact with the company and move their use of Epicor to their next level. For us, it’s a way to learn what Epicor is doing and changing, and how they are moving forward. We can then pass this knowledge on to our customers and help them use the platform better. We can, in particular, help current and future Epicor users customize tools and leverage people-centric AI to get the most value out of their ERP software.
Epicor’s Five Innovation Principles – Building a Future-Ready ERP
Epicor has long focused on five principles of innovation to build its ERP, and Epicor Insights is a timely reminder of them. They are:
- Great Experience. Epicor’s ERP is easy to use, keeping everything centralized. It provides a great, streamlined experience for employees and allows them to do more in less time.
- Data-Driven Insights. Using AI to crunch data, Epicor builds a data supply chain that improves accuracy and collaboration without compromising security. This allows you to use your data to the full.
- Industry Expertise. Epicor has deep experience in five areas – automotive, building supply, distribution, manufacturing, and retail. This allows thousands of companies to get the best out of Epicor and benefit from their expertise.
- Co-Innovation with Customers. This means working with customers to improve and listening to feedback – which is a major driving force behind Epicor Insights.
- People-Centric AI. AI that does not replace humans but rather makes their lives easier and more productive.
Spotlight on Emerging Solutions and Tools
A major purpose of Epicor Insights is to showcase emerging solutions and tools and give customers a chance to try them with the company’s help. Some of the new solutions Epicor demonstrated include:
- SparkCentral – GROW. Epicor’s Grow AI provides predictive modeling and analysis to help customers manage their supply chain and predict demand.
- Inventory Planning & Optimization (IP&O). Epicor continues to improve its IP&O solution. Adding more AI improves sales and inventory planning by offering probabilistic forecasting to help connect inventory optimization to your bottom line.
- Prism, Ascend, Acadia, Kyklo. These AI solutions continue to develop. Acadia, for example, helps frontline workers gain real-time insights directly, instead of through dispatch.
- Insights GO Demo. Epicor also demonstrated GO, 3D visual intelligence that will further improve data-driven insights and be a fantastic tool for showing data to stakeholders.
In particular, Ashley Limbers, our Marketing Manager, enjoyed the focus on AI. “It’s exciting to see how Epicor’s commitment to AI is already sparking action—and will continue to drive growth and competitiveness for our clients.”
Epicor Connected Process Control (CPC) and Acadia
Another focus was connected process control, which uses digital work instructions to enforce process control, connects devices to harvest IoT data, provides embedded quality management, and supports preventive maintenance. All of this allows manufacturing employees to work more effectively. The Andon solution allows all employees to view real-time production information and empowers them.
Acadia does the same thing for front-line workers. Both of these solutions improve employee trust by allowing them direct access to the data they need to do their jobs and encourage innovative solutions from the front line or factory floor.
CPC also matters for workforce readiness and compliance. It allows for the development of a Skills Matrix that directs job-based training so that employees have the skills and knowledge they need and opportunities to continuously improve.
Closing the Visibility Gap and Overcoming Data Challenges
According to Epicor, 79% of companies lack tier 1 supplier visibility, and 48% ignore critical insights. These pain points are something Epicor is working hard to address.
One way is the data supply chain, which ensures that accurate data is transmitted across companies to the people who need it. In many cases, insights are “ignored” because people simply don’t see them. Data from tier 1 suppliers can easily be brought into the data ecosystem.
Epicor also provides solutions for supply chain resilience that include improving visibility so that sourcing can be switched and balanced as needed. Supplier disruptions don’t turn into production disruptions.
3D data visualization is going to be another tool for overcoming data challenges by making data easily visible to stakeholders and showing them, clearly, the impact of changes on their bottom line.
Real-World AI Use Cases That Deliver ROI
Back to AI. Epicor’s AI is designed to support human innovation. Here are four areas in which Epicor’s AI really can help:
- Quoting. AI can analyze the supply chain, predict demand, and help you assess costs so you can provide more accurate quotes.
- Onboarding. New employees can get on track faster, with onboarding even starting before they come on-site.
- Ordering. AI ordering can allow for targeted upselling, dramatically increasing revenue.
- Analysis. Last, but far from least, AI can automate the interpretation of lists and charts so humans don’t have to spend hours poring over them.
Epicor AI – functional, practical, human-first.
Strategic Growth and Vision
Epicor also talked about its growth as a company. Since 2021, they have made 14 acquisitions. Their growth has averaged 12% year-over-year.
They have made over 100 major project releases and over 600 minor ones. All of this reinforces their deep vertical focus in the Make, Move, Sell economy.
Final Thoughts – Empowering the Maker Community
A clear thread through the Epicor Insights 2025 was that while AI has much potential, it is only valuable when applied in context. AI use cases need to be industry-specific, well-thought-out, and centered around supporting people in their activities. Our Director of Professional Services, Dave Cranshaw, had this to say: “I’m excited to work with Kinetic as not just a static ERP as we have all been working with most of our careers, but now as a platform to truly provide actionable insights to our customers very soon. What’s key is clients should be cleaning up their data so it’s good, then moving to the cloud, so they can use PRISM, and lastly turn on GROW post go-live so they can start being part of the change in the industry.”
Epicor also reinforced its commitments to innovation, security, and, above all, community.
At Encompass Solutions, we are here to help our clients learn what is coming next and take advantage of it to improve operations and your bottom line.
Are you ready to see how these innovations fit your business strategy? Talk to your Encompass Solutions account manager today or contact us to explore Epicor and how AI can be used can help your business.
