Opinion: When will artificial intelligence (AI) impact ERP software? Don't hold your breath

You've probably noticed that claims of AI-powered software solutions are starting to pop up more frequently, including in the context of ERP. To be clear, regardless of what breathless marketers and science fiction fans love to dream about, there is currently no such thing as artificial intelligence in its truest form, and technology advances that improve ERP solutions today aren't AI.

Sure, there is faster processing of complex problems and access to machine learning based on relatively inexpensive statistical processing power. That improved access has helped some organizatinos improve insight into their businesses, but it has also created the illusion that computers and software have achieved AI.

My main concern is not that there is not a clear understanding of what AI entails but that its hype will become another rabbit hole that ERP vendors can run down to create slick marketing campaigns rather than fixing fundamental issues that have plagued the ERP industry:

• Poor software design
• Poorly and under trained implementation channels

Combine those and other factors and we fail to fix the fundamental problem of the ERP industry: that there are no successful implementations.

If we agree on a basic set of goals for a successful ERP implementation - on time, on budget, delivering promised functionality -  then there has never been a successful ERP implementation in the history of the market. Something always gives.

Cries of outrage from offended implementers are expected and will be memorialized in a soon-to-be-established ERP Implementation Hall of Fame.

But back to the AI discussion and why it doesn't come close to the ...