AI agents are moving from assistants that fetch data to co-workers that run tasks end to end. ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ says that shift β the autonomous enterprise β rests on two things most companies underestimate: context and governance. And with mainstream ECC support ending in 2027, South African businesses are running out of room to decide. Chris Tredger speaks to Nazia Pillay, Managing Director of ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ Southern Africa #ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ #AI #ECC
The introduction of agentic AI into the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space is set to underpin the era of the autonomous enterprise, according to Nazia Pillay, MD of ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ Southern Africa.
Pillay spoke to ITWeb TV recently about AI-infused ERP, the autonomous enterprise concept β which relies on an army of AI agents at its core β and how organisations need to adapt to benefit from the opportunity.
βAutonomous ERP is not just about using AI to engage with end-users, to assist with navigation and pull data back; it is also about seeing agents as co-workers β systems that are working and performing tasks from end to end with human oversight,β she said.
Pillay added that this fundamental shift requires change management for both human employees and business processes.
βYou are adopting a technology that fundamentally needs to be embedded, and your business processes need to be adapted for how you want to use this in your business,” she said. “Thatβs the main thing that our customers are facing β they need to look at this as a transformation and not just as a plug-and-play technology.β
Pillay cautioned that curiosity about AI does not necessarily indicate organisational readiness. Success, she said, comes down to understanding business objectives and getting data foundations in place.
βMost of our customers are trying to figure out how to navigate this technology β how do I introduce it and how do I do it in a way that is adding value,” she said. “What weβve found is that when they use AI as a proof of concept or an experiment, they are not leveraging the full value of the technology.β
Beyond experimentation, governance frameworks are essential, Pillay said.
βMost of the organisations that we are speaking to need to look at how they are deploying it at an enterprise level, because when you are just deploying it as a proof of concept, you donβt necessarily need to have all those frameworks in place.β
Pillay said the wealth of data that clients have generated through ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ installations provides a good foundation for companies shifting towards the autonomous enterprise.
βWhat we know about AI is that it requires context β so you need to understand where the data is and how it is being used, and this we already have based on our knowledge graphs within ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄,” she said.
βThe second part is governance β what ΒιΆΉΤ΄΄ puts into place to ensure that we have security. We have invested because we have the context and the governance to support our customers in having agents run in a responsible, reliable way.β
With AI agents being deployed across end-to-end business processes, getting governance right will be key, she concluded.
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