Oracle's vision for transforming sales and supply chain with agentic AI
"Employees can focus on creative or complex tasks while AI agents handle the administrative burden."
The workplace is on the verge of a historic transformation. Two years ago, ChatGPT gave us a glimpse of a world in which machines can make light work of many cognitive tasks once exclusively performed by humans.
Now the rise of agentic AI is about to upend the business landscape all over again. An agent is an artificial intelligence system capable of autonomously making decisions and taking action to achieve specific goals without requiring human intervention.
Oracle recently unveiled AI agents and generative AI capabilities within Oracle Fusion Cloud Sales designed to "help sales teams create more meaningful engagements and accelerate sales processes". Its agents can communicate with customers, maintain accurate activity records, deliver personalised account insights, and allow teams to communicate multilingually to customers across the world.
It also introduced role-based AI agents for Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM) that can perform a variety of tasks to free up humans from manual work like data analysis, policy reviews, and order processing,
Agents can work around the clock without needing a break. No job is too dull or repetitive. They are essentially the best colleague a human can hope for - doing all the boring and repetitive tasks so you can get on with the more interesting, strategic work.
To find out more about the agentic revolution, Machine spoke to Darren Hunt, Oracle's senior vice president, applications, for Continental Europe.
What has gone wrong with sales processes to slow them down - and how will agents fix these challenges?
"The necessary but time-consuming administrative tasks sales teams must complete to run an effective function have become overwhelming. Updating account records, drafting customer emails, summarising meetings, and gathering intelligence on prospects all drain time away from meaningful customer interactions. The volume of these tasks has made sales processes rigid, slowing teams down and preventing them from focusing on closing deals.
"AI agents eliminate such tasks through automation. AI-driven assistants can generate personalised emails, ensuring they bypass spam filters while allowing sales representatives to adjust the tone and messaging. They can also summarise recent account activity, organise meeting notes, and automatically update records, freeing up valuable time for sales teams.
"It’s not all about productivity and time-saving. AI agents also increase the effectiveness of sales associates. Embedded generative AI capabilities, for example, help sales teams quickly translate customer engagements and connect with global audiences."
Why did supply chain admin become such a difficult, time-consuming job - and why will professionals welcome the arrival of agents?
"Managing a modern supply chain involves navigating a web of procurement policies, regulatory requirements, logistics coordination, and operational procedures. Supply chain professionals spend hours each week on data analysis, policy reviews and order processing. These activities are crucial but time-intensive. Over time, this has slowed decision-making, reduced efficiency, and made it difficult to respond quickly to market demands.
"Supply chain professionals can now use AI agents to alleviate these challenges by automating repetitive tasks and providing real-time insights. A procurement policy advisor, for example, can work with an agent to process purchase requisitions with greater speed and accuracy using the agent’s insight into procurement policies and product recommendations.
"In operations, AI can help guide quality inspections, ensuring that products meet regulatory standards while reducing the likelihood of errors. Warehouse operators benefit from AI-driven delivery instructions, minimising delays and disruptions.
"Overall, AI agents lessen the administrative workload, allowing supply chain professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and improving agility in an increasingly complex environment."
Oracle has stated that AI agents can act as “advisors” to enterprises. What is Oracle doing to ensure that its advisors are trusted and trustworthy?
"When it comes to AI, the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ concept is now widely recognised. As with any AI technology, AI agents can deliver benefits equal to the quality of their training and the data they have access to. Rigorous data validation, the use of reliable sources and robust data handling processes will ensure valid and reliable results. Also, AI agents are held accountable with detailed reports of their activities, creating an in-depth audit trail that can be referred back to.
"The level of autonomy given to agents is determined by the humans who use them. Just as with hiring a new human assistant, more autonomy may be given as proficiency is proven. For an AI agent to be most successful, it must be given tasks with outcomes that are clearly defined, achievable, measurable, and quantifiable."
How will the mindset of sales teams shift when they use Oracle’s agents? How will their working lives be improved?
"Gartner predicts that by 2026, B2B sales organisations using generative-AI-embedded sales technologies will reduce the time spent on prospecting and customer-meeting prep by over 50%. With AI taking care of many of the time-consuming administrative tasks, sales teams will shift from an operational mindset to a more strategic and customer-centric approach.
"This means sales representatives can concentrate on building stronger relationships with clients, mentoring their team, and closing difficult deals. All this in turn will increase job satisfaction and allow sales professionals to devote more time to the more complex, interesting and human-centred aspects of their jobs."
How much will agents improve the lives of people working in sales and supply chain - and how?
"Giving employees across sales, supply chain and beyond the opportunity to focus on the more creative or complex aspects of their job while AI agents handle the administrative burden – often with greater accuracy and reliability than their human counterparts – will be truly transformative. This workforce transformation will also be iterative, as some agents are designed to improve over time by ingesting new data and refining responses based on interactions with users."
READ MORE: Oracle on agentic AI: Jobs fears, "productivity multipliers" and the mindset for success
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