Putting AI to work in NetSuite

Executive summary

Oracle NetSuite has entered a new chapter. With the 2026.2 release, NetSuite Next reimagines the enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform with artificial intelligence built into the core of the platform rather than added on at the edges. At the same time, NetSuite AI Units introduce a transparent way to measure and manage how much AI an organization consumes across the suite. Together, these two changes reset how finance and operations teams will work inside NetSuite over the next several years.

For most middle market organizations, the strategic question is no longer whether to use AI in NetSuite. Eligible customers already receive an allocation of AI Units at no additional cost, and switching to NetSuite Next is designed to be a single-button change with no data migration. The real question is how to convert this new AI capability into measurable value while keeping consumption, governance, adoption and change management under control.

Below, we explain what NetSuite Next delivers, how the AI Units model works and what it costs in practical terms, and where the opportunities and risks lie for middle market companies.

1. A new era for NetSuite

What NetSuite Next is

NetSuite Next is a next-generation version of the NetSuite platform, delivered as part of the 2026.2 release and rolling out first to customers in the United States and Canada. Rather than a routine feature update, it is a re-architecture of the NetSuite experience: a redesigned interface built on the Oracle Redwood design system, a faster and more responsive foundation running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and AI embedded at every layer of the suite.

The design goal for AI to become a natural extension of how teams already work inside NetSuite. Oracle describes the experience as collaborative, insightful, adaptive, intuitive and trustworthy, combining conversational intelligence, agentic workflows and natural-language search to handle both routine and complex tasks. For existing customers, Oracle has said the move to NetSuite Next will be as simple as pressing a button, with no data migration or rework of existing customizations required.

The capabilities that matter

Several capabilities anchor the NetSuite Next experience and are the areas where companies should focus their attention first:

• Ask Oracle is a single conversational interface to search, analyze and act across the system in natural language. Every response includes source citations, so users can validate an answer before acting on it. Question complexity ranges from simple navigation help to multi-step analysis across records and reports.
• AI Canvas is a shared workspace where analysis and action come together, letting teams explore an issue end to end rather than receiving isolated, one-off report outputs.
• Autonomous close provides continuous monitoring of transactions, balances and anomalies throughout the period, surfacing issues early and keeping the books in a near-ready state so month-end becomes faster and calmer.
• Narrative Insights delivers generative summaries of records and reports that explain an account or transaction in context, including status, recent changes, open items and credit or billing issues.
• Embedded automation across functions brings together AI-assisted accounting, close management, multi-entity management, analytics and reporting, customer management and inventory management, all drawing on a single source of truth.
• Extensibility gives companies the ability to build agents, connect external tools and create tailored experiences on the SuiteCloud platform, including through the NetSuite AI Connector Service.

The common thread in these capabilities is NetSuite Next shifting the platform from a system that records what happened to one that helps interpret, anticipate and act. That shift is powerful, but it also changes the operating model, and that is precisely why a deliberate adoption strategy matters.

2. Understanding AI Units

How the model works

NetSuite AI Units are a standardized, transparent way to measure and manage AI use across the platform. Rather than tracking usage user by user or feature by feature, AI Units are allocated through eligible user licenses and pooled at the account level, so an organization can direct AI to wherever it delivers the most value.

For most customers, AI Units are included with eligible user licenses at no additional cost. The allocation is provisioned up front and is consumable throughout the ERP contract term; unused units expire at the end of the term rather than carrying forward. Each sandbox and development environment receives its own dedicated pool, so teams can test and build without drawing down the production balance. Additional units can be purchased at any time as adoption grows.

Units are consumed whenever eligible AI capabilities generate content, deliver insights, automate tasks, recommend actions or support workflows. Administrators can monitor consumption through centralized usage reporting in NetSuite, with balances visible on the billing information page. Two useful boundaries: add-on modules with their own AI features are not part of this consumption model, and the NetSuite AI Connector Service does not consume AI Units because those requests run outside NetSuite on the customer’s chosen large language model provider.

What consumes AI Units

The figures below are Oracle’s published estimates for AI Unit consumption. Actual measurement varies with the complexity of each request, so estimates are best used for directional planning rather than precise budgeting.

What this means economically

The AI Units model turns AI from an invisible feature into a measurable, manageable resource. That has three practical implications for a finance leader:

• Consumption is now a planning input. High-frequency, low-cost actions such as Text Enhance behave very differently from research-grade Ask Oracle queries that can consume up to 200 units each. Usage patterns, not headcount, drive the burn rate.
• Visibility enables prioritization. Because units are pooled and reported centrally, an organization can steer its allocation toward the highest-value use cases rather than spreading it thinly across low-impact activity.
• Budgeting becomes a discipline. Left unmanaged, enthusiastic early adoption can exhaust an allocation before the most valuable use cases are even live. Managed well, the same allocation funds a deliberate, ROI-led rollout.

In short, AI Units make the economics of AI legible. Whether that legibility becomes an advantage or a surprise depends on how deliberately the organization plans and governs its consumption.

3. The opportunity and the risk

For middle market organizations, NetSuite Next and AI Units together represent one of the most significant platform shifts since NetSuite’s inception. The upside is real: faster close cycles, less manual reporting, quicker answers to operational questions and a lower dependence on technical specialists to extract insight from the system. Because eligible customers receive an AI Unit allocation at no additional cost, the marginal cost of experimentation is low.

But a capability that is easy to switch on is not the same as value that is easy to capture. Three risks recur:

• Adoption without direction. Turning on AI features without a prioritized set of use cases produces scattered experimentation and little measurable return, while quietly drawing down the AI Unit allocation.
• Governance gaps. Conversational access to data across the suite raises legitimate questions about who can ask what, how outputs are validated before action and how AI-assisted decisions are documented for audit.
• Change management shortfalls. The interface, the workflows and the day-to-day rhythm of work change with NetSuite Next. Teams that are not prepared will default to old habits, and the investment will underdeliver.

The organizations that capture the most value will be those that treat this as a business transformation supported by technology, not a switch to be flipped.

4. A phased path to value

Rather than a single cutover, RSM guides clients through a phased path that de-risks adoption and produces measurable outcomes at each stage.

5. How RSM helps you maximize value

RSM approaches NetSuite Next as a value-realization program rather than a technical upgrade. Our NetSuite managed application services and cloud native practice combines deep platform experience with a structured method for identifying, delivering and sustaining measurable outcomes. We organize the work around four pillars.

Getting started

NetSuite Next is arriving now, and the AI Units your organization already holds are a resource waiting to be directed. The most valuable next step is a short readiness and value-mapping conversation: where AI will pay off first in your environment, how your allocation should be planned and what governance you need in place before you scale.