AI has moved past the proof-of-concept stage for most manufacturers. The question is no longer whether it belongs in your ERP, but where it earns its keep and how to deploy it without exposing your data or chasing low-value use cases.
To dig into what this looks like inside Acumatica, we sat down with Doug Johnson, VP of Solution Architecture and Product Management at Acumatica. Doug leads product strategy for Acumatica’s cloud ERP platform and has been closely involved in the company’s AI roadmap since the start.
In this Q&A, Doug covers the two kinds of AI manufacturers should know about, how Acumatica protects your data when AI is in the mix, what anomaly detection looks like on the shop floor, what AI Studio unlocks, and where the roadmap heads next.
Doug: There are two kinds of AI worth knowing about.
The first is machine learning. A good example of this: someone emails you a bill as a PDF. The system reads it and pulls out the vendor’s name, the amount, and the date. If it gets the vendor wrong and you fix it, it learns — and next time, it gets it right.
The second kind is generative AI. That’s the more sophisticated. It can write, summarize, and create. Think of it as another way to interact with your ERP and business data. Instead of digging through reports and screens, AI can help surface information, answer questions, and automate routine tasks.
Doug: This is a big one. If you’re not careful, AI can blow right past your security settings.
Someone could ask it, “Show me everyone’s salary,” and it would just hand that over. Acumatica has always controlled who can see what, and we’ve built those same rules into our AI. Every request — going in or coming out — gets checked against your permissions first.
If you’re not supposed to see something, AI won’t show it to you. If AI tries to write something weird into a product description, that gets blocked too.
Acumatica’s AI capabilities respect the same user permissions already configured in ERP. Users can only access information they’re authorized to see, whether they’re viewing a screen, running a report, or interacting with AI-powered tools.
For organizations using AI Studio, administrators maintain control over how AI is configured and what business data can be accessed.
Doug: ERP systems hold a ton of data, and the hard part is knowing where to look. Anomaly detection does that for you.
Every night, it scans your data and flags anything strange. So when your production manager logs in, they can immediately see where something is off. They can click into the issue, pinpoint the cause, and understand what happened. For example, an employee may have taken twice as long as usual at one station. Maybe it was their first day. Modern anomaly detection can also identify unusual inventory movements, supplier delays, unexpected production costs, quality deviations, and demand shifts before they become larger issues.
It works the same way for production orders. If actual cost runs far above planned cost, it flags the job so you can investigate right away instead of finding out weeks later. And it is not limited to production. It can spot issues across sales orders, purchase orders, and almost anything else in the system.
Doug: AI Studio gives organizations a framework for building and deploying AI-powered workflows inside Acumatica. Manufacturers can create automations, connect AI services, and apply AI to specific business processes without building custom applications from scratch.
The value isn’t simply connecting an AI model. It’s giving organizations a controlled way to put AI to work inside the systems employees already use every day.
Doug: AI Studio can automate repetitive business processes that typically require employees to review information manually. Manufacturers might use it to summarize production exceptions, identify inventory risks, prioritize support requests, draft supplier communications, or surface recommendations based on operational data.
Doug: Today, manufacturers can take advantage of capabilities such as anomaly detection, AI-powered content generation, workflow automation, and AI Studio.
Looking ahead, ERP systems are becoming more conversational. Users increasingly expect to interact with business systems using natural language, ask questions about operations, and receive insights without manually building reports.
The trend isn’t toward replacing employees. It’s toward helping employees spend less time searching for information and more time acting on it.
Three things guide how we build it:
→ Responsible — your data stays your data. We won’t ship anything that puts your security at risk.
→ Practical — there’s no point spending $40,000 on AI to catch a $1,000 mistake. The math has to work.
→ Easy to use — for the built-in stuff, you shouldn’t have to fiddle with anything. You flip it on and it works.
The bigger picture: whether it’s anomaly detection you can use today or voice control coming next year, the point is the same. Use AI to remove repetitive work, surface insights faster, and help employees focus on higher-value decisions.
This recap highlights the headlines, but the full webinar gets to the questions CEOs and CFOs are asking now: where AI can create measurable operational value, how to approach it without increasing risk, and what manufacturers should prioritize before making larger investments.
In the on-demand session, Doug goes deeper into anomaly detection using a live production order, walks through practical AI Studio prompts, and explains how Acumatica applies security controls across its AI capabilities. Joined by Tanner MacDonald from Aktion, the discussion also explores what manufacturers can do today to prepare their ERP environment for the next wave of AI adoption.
Note: The webinar below was recorded in September 2025. Product capabilities may have evolved since recording. The Q&A above reflects current capabilities at the time of publication.
Doug Johnson has over 30 years of product management and marketing experience and is currently the Vice President of Solution Architecture and the Vice President of Product Management at Acumatica, where he defines business requirements for flexibly deployed ERP business management software using SaaS and Cloud technologies.
Christina Birmingham, Vice President of the Multi-Industry Division, leads the team responsible for delivering support, and services to companies in the Construction, Distribution, and Manufacturing Industries.
