NetSuite reveals its 'Next' move at SuiteWorld

Oracle NetSuite used day one of its SuiteWorld conference to take the wraps off NetSuite Next, a version of the suite with conversational AI, agent-style workflows and natural-language search built in.

The keynote mixed Vegas gloss with a clear message from founder and EVP Evan Goldberg: “Cloud gave you access. AI gives you action.” He also described Ask Oracle — the new conversational layer — as “not a copilot… the jet engine.”

NetSuite Next: what’s actually new

NetSuite is pitching Next as a mode customers can switch on in their existing account rather than a migration. The centrepiece is Ask Oracle, which lets users ask questions in plain English, see linked source figures and charts, and act without leaving the page. Explanations sit alongside the results so teams can see how a number was derived.

Demos showed the assistant assembling a dashboard around a question and working with documents (invoices, receipts, contracts, PDFs, and policy manuals) to extract and validate details, then turn those files into workflows. NetSuite is also adding:

• AI Canvas, a collaborative workspace where teams can analyse a problem together and trigger agent-style workflows from a visual board.
• Narrative summaries and insights, which surface explanations, correlations and trends directly inside forms and reports.
• Agentic workflows that watch processes and propose (or carry out) actions such as payment proposals, vendor selection, reconciliations and supply-chain tasks; customers can choose to approve steps or allow autonomous execution.

Goldberg linked the approach to NetSuite’s long-standing decision to build around the business transaction rather than journal entries, arguing that a unified data model and existing role-based controls make explainable AI more practical day-to-day.

Availability: NetSuite says customers in North America will be able to preview Next within the next 12 months, with broader availability to follow. The experience runs on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and adopts the company’s Redwood design system. Switching on Next should retain existing customisations.

Finance updates: payments, planning and subscriptions

The largest finance change is Intelligent Payment Automation and a strategic partnership with BILL. US customers can activate BILL-powered payments inside NetSuite to pay suppliers from their existing bank accounts, backed by BILL’s eight-million-business network. Alongside AI-assisted bill capture and matching, an intelligent payment proposal lets users specify goals in natural language — for example, prioritising key suppliers or capturing early-payment discounts — with reconciliation handled inside NetSuite.

Planning and forecasting will pick up advanced predictions in Planning & Budgeting, using statistical and machine-learning techniques to provide explainable forecasts with confidence ranges and to analyse how connected drivers — sales, marketing, spend and inventory — affect outcomes.

For recurring-revenue businesses, NetSuite introduced Subscription Metrics, an out-of-the-box dashboard for SaaS and other subscription models. It brings together MRR/ARR growth, LTV, TCV, NRR and CAC payback, with roll-forward reporting, cohort heatmaps and OneWorld constant-currency support. AI-generated narrative summaries are planned over the next 12 months.

Platform: bringing AI into SuiteCloud

Under the bonnet, NetSuite expanded the SuiteCloud Platform so partners and customers can make AI part of their own extensions:

• An AI Connector Service (built on open standards such as the Model Context Protocol) to link external assistants, pick models, and govern what they can access.
• SuiteAgent frameworks to build and deploy custom agents on SuiteCloud, supported by Next’s agentic workflow views.
• AI Toolkits exposing NetSuite’s services (Document AI available now; Narrative Insights AI and Knowledge AI to follow) to embed in SuiteApps and customisations.
• AI Assistants including a SuiteCloud Developer Assistant for code and tests, and a SuiteFlow Assistant to design workflows in natural language.
• AI Studios — notably Prompt Studio and Narrative Insight Studio — so admins can tune prompts and outputs before deploying them.

Separately, on 6 October NetSuite expanded its partner programme, adding the SuiteApp.AI Marketplace, new AI categories and badges (including an AI Elite designation for solutions hosted on OCI), and development resources to help partners bring verified AI SuiteApps to market faster.

Infrastructure: Brazil data centres go live

NetSuite announced the general availability of its first data centres in Brazil, in the Oracle Cloud São Paulo and Vinhedo regions.

Hosting locally should cut cross-border transfers for Brazilian customers, help with data-residency requirements and improve performance across Latin America. With Brazil online, NetSuite now runs in 35 data centres across 18 OCI regions on five continents.

Stories on stage

Customer case studies were threaded through the keynote and announcements:

• BERO, the non-alcoholic beer brand co-created by Tom Holland and John Herman, implemented NetSuite before launch to support US/UK expansion and multi-warehouse operations, cutting its monthly close to 3–5 days (from 10–15) and taking sales-order processing below 15 minutes.
• Chomps, now in 30,000+ retail locations, has used NetSuite to tighten AR/AP, inventory and transactional reporting as it scaled beyond D2C.
• PetLab Co. consolidated global finance on NetSuite, completing month-end 80% faster and using the suite as a command centre for online sales, bank reconciliations and third-party logistics — supporting growth past $200m in annual revenue.
• Kieser Australia replaced spreadsheet-heavy processes, eliminated about 80 spreadsheets and cut its year-end close from 25 days to 3 across 31 clinics.

From the keynote stage, Reddit deputy CISO and head of corporate engineering Sean Joerg described the realities of public-company life — controls, transparency and repeatability — and summed up the mood music on adoption: “Public readiness doesn’t just happen — it’s a journey.”

Scale and context

NetSuite framed the announcements with scale figures: 8,000 attendees in the room, 10,000 online; 2 million active users; and 6.4 billion transaction lines processed in December 2024 — roughly 2,400 per second. The company also highlighted an expanded partner ecosystem and the ability for customers to opt in to new features at their own pace.

Stay tuned for Day 2