Epicor Insights 2026: 3,000 manufacturers descend on Nashville – here’s what they want from AI

Epicor Insights 2026 is underway this week at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, bringing together nearly 4,000 customers, partners, and industry leaders for more than 500 sessions and 85 hands-on labs, according to Epicor. Nick Saban (keynote speaker) and Miranda Lambert (Live entertainment) may draw attention, but the bigger story is what the event says about manufacturing ERP’s next chapter.

For Epicor customers, AI is no longer a side conversation. The real question is whether it can solve practical problems inside finance, production, procurement, invoicing, and supply chain workflows.

That is where Epicor Prism becomes central. 

Epicor is positioning Prism as a set of AI agents embedded into industry workflows, not a generic chatbot sitting beside ERP. The promise is straightforward: help users move faster from insight to action, whether that means automating RFQs, improving planning, supporting FP&A, or reducing manual document work.

AI meets the cloud migration deadline

The AI story also overlaps with a more urgent issue: cloud migration. 

Epicor has already outlined final on-premises feature-release timelines for major products, including Kinetic and Prophet 21, with active support windows stretching into 2029. That gives customers time, but ERP migrations are complex, expensive, and operationally sensitive.

This makes the practical sessions at Insights especially important. Manufacturers will want clear answers on migration timelines, customization, integrations, security, data access, downtime, and whether cloud adoption is becoming the gateway to Epicor’s most advanced AI capabilities.

The timing is also right. Deloitte’s 2026 manufacturing outlook found that 80% of surveyed manufacturing executives planned to invest at least 20% of their improvement budgets in smart manufacturing initiatives.

That is why Epicor’s message matters. Manufacturers are not looking for AI theatre. They want fewer manual steps, better forecasts, faster quoting, cleaner invoicing, and more resilient operations.

If Epicor can make Prism useful inside everyday ERP workflows, Insights 2026 may be remembered less for its celebrity billing and more as the moment Epicor sharpened its pitch: ERP should not just record what happened. It should help decide what happens next.