Listen to the interview here: Leanne Taylor, Syspro
Syspro is sharpening its AI strategy around the argument that manufacturers and distributors do not need more AI tools sitting outside the business system. They need intelligence embedded inside the workflows that run orders, inventory, production, finance, and distribution.
In a conversation with ERP Today, Syspro CEO Leanne Taylor discussed how the company is thinking about AI as an “activation layer” for ERP, why governance has to be built into the architecture, and how manufacturers can avoid AI sprawl by focusing on use cases that produce measurable operational outcomes.
Q: Since you became CEO of Syspro, how have you been thinking about the company’s next phase?
It’s a good time to be CEO of Syspro. Jaco Maritz, who has been CEO for a number of years, has been instrumental in helping me step up and get ready for this next chapter of the Syspro story. We moved through a strong year of foundational regrowth in 2025, and that puts us in a strong position as we move into 2026, especially as we get ourselves ready for the AI shift we are making.
Q: Syspro has been talking about AI as the activation layer for ERP. What does that mean?
There’s a huge expectation around AI, and then there is the reality. There are no playbooks for this. AI is incredibly valuable, but it does not transform operations on its own. It needs to operate inside a system where you can really start to release that value.
As we looked at our AI strategy and where we can help customers drive value, it became clear that we have to build AI as part of an integrated orchestration into ERP. It cannot be a separate standalone layer sitting outside ERP, which is sometimes what we see in the market.
Q: What kinds of AI capabilities are most useful for turning ERP data into operational action, instead of just creating more dashboards?
There’s definitely a place for dashboards and reporting. Internally, we just delivered our first board meeting where we did not use a single slide deck. The reporting was fully driven through the system, so there is value to that.
But the real question is where AI is genuinely going to affect timing, risk mitigation, and productivity. You have to tie it back to an outcome. For example, can we get sales orders matched against pricing, inventory, credit, and fulfillment constraints before they create downstream issues? Today, ERP transactional data supports parts of that, but there is still a human doing a lot of the work.
The value comes when we can augment that work with digital capability, keep the human in the loop, and accelerate what teams are already doing.
Q: How are manufacturing and distribution use cases shaping Syspro’s AI roadmap?
In manufacturing, the interesting thing is that different subverticals can have very similar process patterns. What has been important for us is identifying the common process elements and risk elements that we can focus on. The risk is AI sprawl. You can build anything, but anything does not necessarily yield results.
For us, the question is where agentic AI can add a tangible outcome. Can we attribute this AI orchestration back to ROI? Predictive maintenance is a good example. We can start to move from reporting what is happening to getting ahead of what is happening, so the business can see outcomes that matter.
Q: How does that change when customers move from predictive to prescriptive or agentic use cases?
Supply chains are disrupted in a way we haven’t seen before. The value is not only that we can become more prescriptive. It is that we can be prescriptive within the complications customers are facing in the market and still manage to a cost base that was set before those disruptions happened.
You often start with a use case that looks generic. Then, as you move it forward, you ask what else it can do and where else it can help. It becomes a golden thread that can run all the way through the business.
But all of this depends on having the data and the context. I compare it to trying to play a piece of music on a piano that does not have all the keys. You can still play the music, but it will not be effective. That context layer is where the use cases start to become truly effective.
Q: How important are subject matter experts in that process?
That’s one of the differences when you work in ERP and in verticals as deeply as we do. You have deep subject matter experts inside the organization and within the customer base.
As you bring that knowledge and IP together with AI, it starts to generate opportunities that maybe we would not have put together in the first place. It gives you a digital expertise in the room that you can bounce ideas off. There is a real opportunity to accelerate how we identify use cases by combining human and digital subject matter expertise.
Q: Governance and security are major concerns, especially in manufacturing environments with legacy systems. How is Syspro approaching that?
That’s why we made a very deliberate strategic and architectural decision to build the intelligence layer into Syspro. It’s governed by the trust and policies that already exist. One of the challenges with standalone legacy systems is that third-party point solutions often try to build an API layer on top of them without the same governance.
In manufacturing, you have to trust the operation. If you cannot trust the operation, no one is going to use it. That’s why Syspro AI Studio sits at the heart of the intelligence layer. It is not a bolt-on or a copilot. It is architected to be embedded into the data, the process, and the orchestration, so it is not sitting outside the governance boundaries.
Q: How does AI Studio make this accessible to operational teams?
There’s so much content about how to use AI that it can become overwhelming. You think you are on top of it, and by Monday something else has been released.
Syspro AI Studio is an orchestration platform that allows customers to design rule-based agents and digital workers in common language. You do not need seven degrees in prompt engineering.
The people who understand how a company operates and what the outcomes need to be are not necessarily prompt engineers or R&D teams. AI Studio enables those users and champions inside the Syspro environment to configure and drive the agentic outcomes they need without significant coding capability.
Q: How should executives think about proving ROI from AI in ERP?
Ultimately, we have to get to a point where we can underwrite outcomes together. If we deploy AI inside your ERP environment, factory floor, or distribution center, can we prove inventory optimization to a defined level?
From an executive point of view, many leaders are saying they do not necessarily want to cut headcount. They want to scale the business without adding significant cost. For the first time, if you look at roles such as sales order entry clerks, debtors clerks, or finance teams, you can bolster the team with digitally orchestrated capability and capacity without significantly driving up cost.
I think the journey starts with levels of AI automation that people become comfortable with. Then it moves to digital workers with human-in-the-loop orchestration. Eventually, we move to autonomous workers that are very rule-bound and governed through orchestration. That is where automation becomes safe because it is controlled.
Q: Where do AI activation projects tend to stall?
In the mid-market, we often see early adopters inside a company. It might be the IT lead or the head of operations who can see the value. But the executive team has not bought in yet.
Executives have to understand the fundamental shift in the business, because this has to be owned and accountable at the executive level. If executives are not bought in, it is a tough journey for the organization.
The second area is trust. If people trust what is happening in their system, their mindset shifts. But to change a mindset, people have to see it working. You cannot just ask someone to believe it is going to happen.
That trust orchestration and executive ownership are the two areas where we see customers either running quickly or lagging behind.
Q: What do you expect ERP to look like over the next three to five years?
In the medium term, I see ERP moving away from tracking the business to actively operating the business, underpinned by AI. We move from a system of record to a system of decision and a system of execution. That will not happen overnight. There will be leading and lagging organizations, just as there were with cloud.
But it will become evident very quickly that there are more effective ways to run businesses. There is an ability to scale and an ability to remove risk from the business. That is what this shift will give business owners.
Q: What is Syspro focused on as it brings this strategy to customers?
Chris Lloyd, our Chief Product Officer, and I are focused on not creating AI sprawl. The use cases have to be tangible, realistic, and able to land with customers now. We can iterate and build from there.
At the same time, AI Studio allows customers that are further ahead to start creating their own agentic workforce inside ERP through Syspro, so we are not slowing down those who are ready to run faster.
The important thing for us is that customers see the value and trust us. As we launch and go live, we need to stay extremely close to customers to see where they are building trust and what is preventing it.
That goes from the executive layer all the way down to factory workers. Ultimately, they need to say, ‘This is with me, not instead of me. It enables me to do my job faster and to a quality I would not have been able to achieve in the same timeframe without it.’
