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Your ERP is getting a new interface, and it is the chat window your people already have open. Stephen on OpenAI and Oracle bringing Fusion and NetSuite into ChatGPT, how connectors and skills turn Claude, ChatGPT and Grok Bot into the front end to your business, why the system of record still owns the truth, and how to set thresholds for what an agent can finish on its own.
In this episode, Stephen Forte covers:
- The news. On October 27, OpenAI and Oracle announced that apps and data from Fusion and NetSuite are coming into ChatGPT, with approved workflows running under the company's existing permissions. Still in development, no general availability date. Treat it as a direction, not a rollout.
- AI arrives at the systems that move money. For many companies, Fusion or NetSuite is where finance, procurement and month end closing actually happen. This is not a side pilot.
- Connectors and skills. Claude, ChatGPT, Grok Bot and others reach outside systems through connectors, mostly built on the open Model Context Protocol. Skills teach the assistant how your company does a specific job. Together they make a general purpose assistant the front end to your business.
- Meet people where they work. Nobody wants another interface. Hard systems get worked around in spreadsheets. Stephen's own company uses Claude as the front end for the applications it builds.
- The system of record owns the truth. The chat is where work starts. The ERP is where work is recorded. Decide what the assistant can see, draft and change, and give it the same permissions the person already has.
- Thresholds for agent action. Stephen's Outlook Drafts example from Grok Bot. Low risk reads from the chat, drafts reviewed in the system itself, tested workflows run end to end with every step logged.
- Start small. Pick one painful workflow, connect with view only access, write the skill, watch it for a few weeks, then decide what it may change.
Sources:
- OpenAI, Oracle apps in ChatGPT (Oct 27, 2026): https://openai.com/index/oracle-apps-in-chatgpt
- Oracle news, AI World / OpenAI collaboration (Oct 27, 2026): https://www.oracle.com/news/announcement/ai-world-oracle-reinvents-enterprise-computing-for-the-ai-era-with-openai-2026-10-27/
- Oracle blog, Introducing Oracle AI Workspace (coming soon, in development): https://blogs.oracle.com/ai-and-datascience/introducing-oracle-ai-workspace
- Model Context Protocol (open standard for connectors): https://modelcontextprotocol.io
The AI Brief from the YPO Technology Network is a daily executive briefing on the AI developments that matter to business leaders. Hosted by Stephen Forte.
