The time Is right for autonomous ERP,’ Says Infor CTO Soma Somasundaram

You’ve had a very busy quarter, especially with Infor’s recent cloud and AI announcements. How has the past quarter been for the company?

It’s been extremely encouraging. We continue to see strong momentum in our cloud journey. Many customers currently running Infor solutions on-premise are transitioning to our modern Infor CloudSuite platforms. In the last 60 days, we launched LEAP, a major initiative to help on-premise customers migrate to the cloud—whether they’re using current Infor ERPs or even older AS/400-based systems.

We’re seeing strong customer response, including net-new clients, which shows confidence in our strategy. Over the past four to five quarters, we’ve consistently recorded double-digit SaaS bookings growth, which is a great indicator of traction.

On the product front, our October release was a major milestone. Building on our Velocity Suite for automation and process mining, we added Generative AI and agentic AI into CloudSuite, enabling conversational user experiences and autonomous or semi-autonomous process execution. Customers are under pressure to drive efficiencies, and these capabilities help them do exactly that—with a simple subscription model instead of complex usage pricing.

What gaps were you aiming to address with LEAP? Is it mainly about reducing migration risk or ensuring predictable timelines?

It’s both—and more. Historically, Infor has never forced customers to move. We’ve always supported them where they are. But customers now need compelling reasons to modernize. LEAP provides the right timing, strong incentives, and predictable outcomes.

With LEAP, customers get automation through Velocity Suite, modern best practices, and cloud resilience. We also structured it so their existing maintenance payment converts into their first-year cloud subscription, with options for fixed-fee implementations, ensuring financial and operational predictability.

Cloud capabilities are now mature, secure, scalable, and enhanced by AI—so this is the right moment to move.

Cloud migrations often fail because of data and change complexities. Does LEAP actually de-risk those challenges, or is it more of a commercial innovation?

Commercial innovation is only one part. LEAP is fundamentally about predictable delivery.

First, data. We acquired and integrated strong data quality and migration capabilities, enabling cleansing and smooth movement into the cloud.

Second, customization complexity. Many ERPs were heavily customized 10–15 years ago. Our tooling scans environments, identifies what can be retired, what can be replaced with best practices, and what truly needs to remain as extensions. We even built a dedicated team to guide this transition.

Third, we use process mining to show customers how their systems actually run versus how they ideally should. That significantly simplifies change management.

So yes—LEAP standardizes, simplifies, and de-risks migration in a holistic way.

You recently rolled out AI agents. How are customers responding, and can you share real-world use examples?

Let me share two examples.

One is fully automated invoice handling. Traditionally, invoices arrive as PDFs. Using AWS generative AI services, we extract data, convert it into APIs, process it in CloudSuite, and auto-approve when everything matches. But business reality brings exceptions—for example, quantity discrepancies in industries like food and beverage.

This is where AI agents step in. They analyze historical supplier performance to recommend whether an exception should be approved or not. That moves AI from automation to intelligent judgment.

The second example is conversational decision intelligence. A user might receive a customer change request. Instead of manually coordinating across systems, they can ask our conversational assistant to analyze impact—costs, delivery timelines, and project implications. The agent runs processes, returns insights, and makes recommendations. The user stays in control, while the system handles operational complexity.

Customers appreciate both the intelligence and the balance of autonomy with control.

Many enterprises worry about data security and control with generative AI. How do you address those fears?

Customers are rightly cautious. Their key concerns are whether their data is secure, whether it is being used to train large language models, and whether they retain control.

We address all of these head-on. Customer data stays within a secure regional environment—if they operate in Frankfurt, their data never leaves Frankfurt. We do not use customer data to train our AI models. And we give customers clear visibility and control over AI recommendations. This balance of trust, safety, and governance is why we are seeing strong adoption momentum.

How quickly do customers start seeing value?

Very quickly. Our approach is use-case driven, not technology-driven. Whether it’s invoice matching, product creation in distribution, or proof-of-delivery automation, these come as predefined industry scenarios.

Customers typically begin realizing value within 60 days. These are not multi-year transformation programs. You deploy, see results in six to eight weeks, and then scale further.

Where are you seeing the strongest adoption curve for AI agents?

Adoption is strong across nearly all industries we serve. The only slower adopters are highly regulated sectors such as aerospace & defense and public environments, mainly due to stricter regulatory scrutiny. Everywhere else—including manufacturing, distribution, food & beverage, and fashion—we’re seeing enthusiastic deployment.

As you head to AWS re:Invent, what message are you taking to the AWS ecosystem?

It’s a two-way engagement. First, we run entirely on AWS and embed hundreds of AWS services including S3, SageMaker, Textract, and Bedrock. Our engineering leaders use re:Invent to stay ahead of AWS innovation.

Second, it’s a great platform to engage with customers who already rely on AWS for their cloud workloads.

Third, it strengthens our joint positioning—Infor’s industry-cloud expertise combined with AWS scale delivers strong value to enterprises.

Infor is a launch partner for AWS European Sovereign Cloud. What strategic opportunity does that open?

This is significant, particularly for highly regulated industries in Europe. These organizations want sovereign environments fully contained within local boundaries to meet compliance expectations.

We already support similar needs with sovereign cloud environments in other global regions. The European Sovereign Cloud allows us to bring that same level of security, compliance, and trust to European enterprises—helping them modernize without compromising sovereignty.

AWS Bedrock is central to your AI stack. Any concerns about vendor lock-in?

No. We’ve been with AWS for more than 12 years. They continue to lead in cloud innovation and openness.

Bedrock allows customers to choose models—Anthropic today, or others like Gemini or OpenAI if they prefer. That aligns perfectly with our philosophy of optionality, flexibility, and openness. Even customers who may compete with Amazon in certain domains still choose AWS for its innovation maturity.

How do you see AI agents evolving in enterprise software?

I foresee a world where enterprises run on coexisting AI agents from multiple vendors—including their own internally developed ones—and these agents autonomously manage large parts of operations.

The goal is to free people from system overhead. A nurse should spend more time with a patient, not with hospital software. A supply chain professional should solve supply challenges, not wrestle with screens. We’ll see systems requiring less manual interaction and more autonomous execution—guided, but not constrained, by humans.

With global AI regulation evolving, how are you preparing?

We have a dedicated AI governance and compliance team. We operate globally, deploy in multiple regulated markets, and closely monitor emerging policy landscapes. Compliance isn’t optional—it’s foundational to how we operate.

Finally, what’s your closing message to enterprises watching this AI and cloud transformation unfold?

The time is right. Cloud maturity, AI intelligence, security confidence, and business need have all converged. Enterprises that modernize thoughtfully will unlock agility and competitive advantage faster than ever before.

By Aanchal Ghatak