Epicor Insights 2026 represents Epicor’s break into the future. Over 4,100 attendees made their way to the Gaylord in Nashville, Tennessee to hear from Epicor leadership about Epicor’s roadmap and commitment to innovation.

The conference comes on the tail end of Epicor’s January announcement of final on-premises release schedules for Kinetic, Prophet 21, and Eclipse. The move is indicative of a shift away from traditional delivery into a modern, AI-fueled approach. These trends laid the foundation for content at Insights 2026.

ERP Advisors Group’s Review of Epicor Insights 2026

Finding the Right Pace for Change

In a world where technology is released faster than it can be adopted, it is crucial to foster the skills needed for effective and sustainable deployment. Businesses are unable to leverage the power of AI unless they have specific, proven use cases. Epicor is guiding businesses with the right pace for change by strengthening their core, which is rooted in industry expertise.

Change begins with data, especially in the age of AI, where your results are only as good as the database. That data and decision-making come from what Epicor is calling “Cognitive ERP.” Cognitive ERP learns from your data and logic to provide unique, context-driven insights.

However, customers cannot benefit from what is coming until the foundation is in place for AI and technology adoption. Epicor continues to combat the obstacle of outdated technology standing in the way of modernization with the Ascend program. Ascend is designed to enable customers utilizing on-premises systems to make the move to the cloud. A large part of that is data. AI and emerging solutions will only be as good as the data they are being fed. The focus of Ascend is to also utilize AI to streamline data cleansing and validation to shrink implementation timelines. The solution learns from existing successful models and applies those lessons to other, similar projects. Initial system modernization is the most important first step in striving towards AI-enabled operations, and Epicor is dedicated to empowering its customers.

Strengthening Epicor’s Core

Epicor has created a name for itself in industry specialization, creating a seamless, cohesive experience for companies in the Make, Move, and Sell industries. This will continue to be a major differentiator in the new era of ERP, where Epicor is doubling down on its experience, especially customer successes, and applying those methodologies and lessons to others. These lessons and experiences will shape ongoing improvements to Epicor ERP and other solutions.

A major advantage of Epicor technology and the ecosystem has been industry expertise. And the emerging focus on artificial intelligence is not going to change that. In fact, that expertise is what is going to make Epicor’s industry agents effective. AI will enhance the overall experience to reduce customization costs and make it easier for users to interact with the systems they have come to rely on.

AI Innovations and the Emergence of Headless ERP

Epicor’s goal is to deliver a “Headless ERP” which means a solution with no set, definitive user interface but an ever-evolving interface and experience developed to meet the needs of a specific company. That vision can only be achieved with the power of AI.

Setting the scene, Epicor CEO Steve Murphy highlighted three main factors that will help ensure AI works for your business: “[High-quality] input and output to ensure trustworthy results, [keeping] humans in the loop because it is not good enough to be ‘almost correct’, and [the importance of] low friction for people and users.” Artificial Intelligence is only as powerful as the data it is pulling from, making that the core focus of any AI adoption project. Part of that data is from “strengthening the core” and industry expertise of the platform.

Once the foundation is in place, customers can begin to leverage new AI tools from Epicor. Heavy investments are being made in the Agent Foundry, where customers can develop their own AI agents in a low-code, no-code environment. Epicor’s unique take on artificial intelligence relies heavily on community. Community will sit at the heart of Epicor’s product innovation, taking into account the specialized needs and processes of those who utilize Kinetic, Prophet 21, and Eclipse every day. Customers who choose to develop AI agents in the Agent Foundry have the option to submit the agent for review, as well as to the Epicor marketplace. The review process enables Epicor experts to oversee the adoption of AI agents and ensure the code is accurately deployed. Upon agent verification and approval, it will be launched in the marketplace for download among other Epicor customers. Using the Agent Foundry, Epicor customers can either adopt pre-developed AI agents from the vendor or build their own.

Beyond AI agents, customers are benefitting from a move towards the aforementioned “Headless ERP” wherein AI will be utilized to customize the user interface for the needs of each individual business. The new tool is LUX, Epicor’s proprietary UI/UX to govern the interactions between artificial intelligence and people. As users become more comfortable with applying AI to daily operations, LUX will be leveraged more and more to enhance how users interact with ERP.

All new AI solutions will be governed under the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling Epicor Prism to interact with external systems while keeping customer and internal data safe. A major focus for Epicor is the democratization of AI across all technology stacks, ensuring greater accessibility in a safe environment. With connectivity, customers won’t be limited by disjointed AI models or tools with siloed data. Strong integrations are already built with Claude and ChatGPT, but will continue to be developed through the emergence of new solutions and community efforts.

Conclusion

The Epicor community will be harnessed like never before in the era of AI. Businesses, vendors, and users will come to rely on each other for creative solutions and knowledge sharing across the Epicor ecosystem, building upon the innovative tools being released directly by Epicor. But the key to success is identifying the right pace for change in a world where technology is outpacing our ability to harness it. If you need help with your modernization journey, schedule a free consultation to speak with one of our expert software consultants today.