SuiteWorld 2025 unpacked: highlights, implications and what it means for NetSuite users
Sometimes it's the smallest changes that get the loudest reaction. Amid all the AI talk and glossy demos, the biggest cheer came when NetSuite confirmed - after years of user requests - that dark mode is finally coming to the UI. It's a crowd-pleaser, yes, but it also shows that NetSuite is paying attention to the details users live with all day.
That same pragmatism is shaping how NetSuite is building its AI.
Over the past few years we've watched AI products emerge, first slowly and only at the edges, and now at full speed, soon to be AI woven into the very heart of the platform.
As Evan Goldberg, founder and EVP, Oracle NetSuite. put it: "With the latest AI innovations built in, NetSuite Next can deliver powerful insights as well as autonomously complete repetitive and complex tasks, all with enterprise-level reliability. It enables users to discover patterns in their business and engage with NetSuite in their own words, all while understanding an individual user's context, so it can deliver answers and actions that provide immediate value,".
Indeed, NetSuite Next was the headline act at SuiteWorld 2025.
Powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), NetSuite Next is a mode you will soon be able to switch on. Once enabled, it layers on a conversational front door (Ask Oracle), agentic workflows for tasks like payments and reconciliations, an "autonomous close" that surfaces exceptions during the month, a planning canvas for scenario modelling and governed extensibility via SuiteAgents and an AI Connector. All of this is wrapped in the Redwood UI (yes, including dark mode) and underpinned by a unified data model.
If the new features inside NetSuite Next aren't enough, NetSuite has also opened the door to wider AI innovation. SuiteCloud - the developer platform - is being rebuilt as an open, composable AI layer so customers and partners can add intelligence to what they already run.
This is powered by the new AI Connector and "AI Experts." Using the Model Context Protocol (MCP), they let external assistants analyse NetSuite data with the right context and take actions only within existing roles and policies. In practice, that means industry rules can sit as governed components inside the suite rather than as fragile side scripts.
Instead of prescribing every use case, NetSuite is setting the rails and leaving headroom for innovation. By opening SuiteCloud to governed assistants and standardising how they interact, customers and partners have the freedom to build what they want, while data, permissions and accountability remain intact.
And while AI dominated the stage, delegates also got a look at the UI behind NetSuite Next. It's very clean and intuitive - a genuine modernisation that makes NetSuite feel more like a contemporary business app than a back-office system.
Because attention was fixed on AI and the UI, what was missing were the steady, incremental updates to modules like warehouse and order management that many users look forward to. Those improvements are still in play, but this year the spotlight was firmly on the bigger shifts in experience and capability.
That focus signals a very different kind of ERP experience ahead. What used to be a system you poked for reports looks set to become a system that listens, explains and suggests the next step. Instead of clicking through menus and stitching spreadsheets, you'll be able to ask a question, see where the answer came from and choose to let the system draft or complete the task under clear limits. If your data is tidy and processes are standard, this really should mean faster decisions and less day-to-day friction without giving up control.
There's been a lot to take in at SuiteWorld 2025. The announcements point to an exciting new direction for the ERP sector as whole. But the real work now is unpacking what we've heard, what these new products will mean for our customers and how it will actually play out for users in the months and years ahead.
