Relaunch Event Recap: How Oracle EPM and AI Are Reshaping the Enterprise

On May 15, 2025, we welcomed customers and partners to Houston for the EPMI Relaunch event—an afternoon packed with insights on enterprise performance management, predictive planning, and the growing role of AI in finance. Here’s a breakdown of key presentations and key takeaways:

Overview

• Discover how Oracle EPM AI features are helping finance teams automate forecasting, generate insights, and streamline planning.
• Explore real-world applications of AI agents in enterprise operations, from predictive analytics to narrative reporting and process automation.
• Learn how organizations like Nabors Industries and McDermott are using Oracle Cloud EPM to shift IT efforts from maintenance to strategic impact.

Strategic Partners & Market Momentum with Oracle Presented by Jason Jeray, Oracle VP, Energy, Utilities & Industrials

Jason Jeray started the event with a forward-looking session focused on how Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is powering the next generation of AI-driven enterprise transformation—especially in complex, data-rich industries like energy and manufacturing.

Key Themes:

• Replacing fragmented AI tools with OCI’s unified infrastructure for faster, more cost-effective model training and deployment.
• How bare metal compute, high-speed RDMA clustering, and massive local NVMe storage give Oracle a competitive edge for training GenAI models at scale.
• Why “the best AI comes from your data”—emphasizing the power of enterprise data strategy and vector search in Oracle Database 23ai.

AI Initiatives in EPM – Presented by Al Marciante, Oracle VP of Product Management

Marciante shared the future of Oracle Cloud EPM, outlining how artificial intelligence is becoming core to planning, forecasting, and reporting workflows.

Key Themes

• Predictive Planning & AutoPredict: Accelerate decision-making by generating accurate forecasts across business units with less manual input.
• Generative AI for Narrative Reporting: Automatically produce management narratives, variance analysis, and explanations—streamlining reporting cycles.
• AI Agents in Finance: Tools like the Insight Exploration Assistant and Forecast Bias Analyzer now help uncover anomalies and streamline decision support.

This session spotlighted how AI-powered EPM tools are reducing bias, improving accuracy, and helping finance own their forecasting with minimal IT support.

“We’re moving from retrospective analysis to prospective intelligence—giving planners the ability to make decisions faster and with greater confidence.” – Al Marciante

Data Re:Imagined Presented by David Dotson and James Rodgers, Oracle Sales Engineering

In this session, the Oracle team showcased real-world use cases for AI-enabled enterprise planning and demonstrated how organizations can deploy forecast automation and multivariate models within Oracle EPM.

Key Themes

• Use Auto Predict to generate a complete base forecast across departments.
• Apply advanced multivariate prediction models to assess key drivers like workforce, pricing, and demand.
• Use a digital assistant to ask natural language questions, automate tasks, and generate scenario models instantly.

This session illustrated the strategic leap from spreadsheet-driven planning to intelligent financial forecasting software—making Oracle EPM a must-have for agile finance teams.

AI Ops: Bringing AI Agents to the Enterprise Presented by Chris Wilke, CPO at CWC Global

Wilke delivered a blueprint for designing and governing AI assistants for finance and business teams. He explained how these agents work alongside humans to drive automation, intelligence, and operational efficiency.

Key Themes:

• Build AI agents using Golden Datasets and structured prompts that ensure domain-specific accuracy and contextual understanding.
• Ensure agent governance through security, quality control, and ethical guardrails.
• Start with native actions like document parsing, and scale to custom API integrations for ERP, CRM, and internal systems.

For any organization looking to build AI digital teammates, this session laid out both the opportunity and the operational discipline required.

“AI agents are stochastic. They won’t always produce the same result—but with the right governance, they’ll get better over time and drive real transformation.” – Chris Wilke

Customer Success: Nabors Industries and McDermott Modernize with Oracle Cloud EPM

In the panel session, technology leaders from Nabors Industries and McDermott shared how Oracle Cloud is driving measurable impact across their global finance operations.

At Nabors, the shift from on-prem infrastructure to Oracle Cloud EPM has dramatically changed how IT supports the business:

Nabors’ IT team used to spend 70% of their time on mundane tasks like restarting servers and applying patches. Now that they moved to Oracle Cloud, it’s less than 10%. They spent 90%+ of their time on strategic initiatives that the business actually needs.

McDermott, meanwhile, underwent an end-to-end finance transformation—replacing BlackLine and TriTech with Oracle Account Reconciliation Cloud Service (ARCS). With over a decade of historical data and a redesigned chart of accounts powered by Oracle EPM, McDermott now manages a standardized global close process.

Key Themes:

• Oracle ARCS replaced fragmented reconciliation tools with a scalable, cloud-based solution
• The role of EPM in enabling a modernized, enterprise-wide chart of accounts
• A future-proof architecture that supports repeatable success across business units

Together, these customer stories showcased the power of Oracle Cloud to not only streamline operations—but also to create space for real innovation in finance.