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\u2018Watershed moment\u2019: Technology One chief Ed Chung says his agentic AI software will be a step change for public sector customers. Image: Supplied<\/p>\nAustralian enterprise software leader TechnologyOne on Thursday unveiled its new agentic AI system, promising governments, councils and university customers a new ability to instantly exploit troves of data with a few sentences.<\/p>\n
The new \u2018PLUS\u2019 platform predicts, learns and uncovers insights from the enterprise through a natural language interface, the company told its customers and investors, breaking cover on years of research and development.<\/p>\n
The agentic AI capability is also being rolled out to TechOne\u2019s 19 individual products like business analytics, budgeting human resources and financials.<\/p>\n
The new AI capability will be free for exiting customers up to a monthly limit of \u201cinteractions\u201d \u2014 when the AI is triggered in the existing products \u2014 and a larger cap for the \u201cconversations\u201d in the all new PLUS platform. The simple system is designed to remove the confusion of AI tokens, the units of data measured by AI that can quickly sprawl from simple prompts.<\/p>\n
PLUS will initially offer 1,000 conversations per month without additional charge while 200 interactions will be free each month for the individual products.<\/p>\n
\u2018Watershed moment\u2019: Technology One chief Ed Chung says his agentic AI software will be a step change for public sector customers. Image: Supplied<\/p>\n
A live demo of the enterprise-wide PLUS platform showed how it could pull up information about job candidates from a customer\u2019s enterprise resource planning system and provide summaries based on their resume data.<\/p>\n
It then goes further with a breakdown and comparison of candidates, as well as interview packs with personalised questions for an interview. But in-built \u2018human in the loop\u2019 guardrails from TechOne stop it making a hiring recommendation.<\/p>\n
Other examples showed universities breaking down funding revenues, and TechOne also expects its council and government customers will be able to significantly speed up tasks like work and leave requests.<\/p>\n
Step change<\/p>\n
The Brisbane company has dabbled with AI to analyse images and expense reports but until now had not integrated agentic AI across its flagship offerings that receive biannual updates.<\/p>\n
It says it was willing to let competitors go first to ensure its offering could be developed with customers and governance like an AI ISO certification was in place.<\/p>\n
TechOne is one of only two ERP companies worldwide and the only ASX50 with the ISO 42001:2023 certification, the world\u2019s first global standard for Artificial Intelligent Management Systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re much more slow and steady wins the race\u2026 What you see here with PLUS is two years of working in the background,\u201d chief operating officer Stuart MacDonald told InnovationAus.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really believe in waiting until it is right but also getting validation through the market before we go to mass [deployment].\u201d<\/p>\n
The company is bullish on the efficiencies its clients will be able to generate and expects it to help peel away customers from global giants like Oracle and SAP.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur industry, all we\u2019ve done for 40 years is get data into a table and try to get data back out of a table. It didn\u2019t matter if it was on prem or SaaS or the cloud or client server, it was all just different technologies to do the exact same thing,\u201d Mr MacDonald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you see here is a step change. You don\u2019t have to worry about any of that [data location]. It\u2019s giving you analysis of the next step, it\u2019s giving you not only your data back but the direction of where it should go. That\u2019s the material change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new PLUS platform is an example of the benefits of inhouse innovation and working with customers, Mr MacDonald said, and arrives as policymakers weigh new weight to encourage business investment in R&D.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur marketing budget is the coffee budget of Oracle. And we\u2019re proud of that. We want people to see our product and [then] the product sells itself,\u201d Mr MacDonald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to be all things to all people. We\u2019re trying to let our software speak for itself and be the growth engine of the business. That\u2019s why we put the money back into [the R&D].\u201d<\/p>\n
TechOne chief executive Ed Ching said the solutions released Thursday are the culmination of nearly 40 years of work for the Brisbane company.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a watershed moment in enterprise software,\u201d Mr Chung said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPLUS redefines how organisations operate. By connecting enterprise-wide data, PLUS anticipates needs, designs solutions, and delivers results that enable organisations to adapt with unprecedented speed and precision. It creates valuable time for communities to work more productively and sustainably.\u201d<\/p>\n