Oracle (ORCL), fresh off of announcing its part in the massive Stargate Project alongside OpenAI and SoftBank, debuted its latest AI agents aimed at manufacturers during its CloudWorld event in Austin Thursday.
The agents are designed to help supply chain workers across a host of jobs ranging from procurement to sustainability. AI agents are specialized artificial intelligence bots that can take actions on a user’s behalf, either autonomously or with their oversight, across multiple apps.
Companies ranging from Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) to Amazon (AMZN) and Nvidia (NVDA) are pushing AI agents as the next major step in AI evolution thanks to their ability to help streamline mundane but time-consuming tasks.
“Our new AI agents for supply chain management help ease the administrative burden by streamlining workflows and automating routine tasks to enable greater accuracy and efficiency, smarter decision-making, and ultimately, a more agile and responsive supply chain,” Oracle executive vice president of applications development Chris Leone said in a statement.
The idea behind Oracle’s latest offerings, which are available through its Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain and Manufacturing platform, is to help employees deal with everything from product inspections to providing detailed delivery instructions for goods.
The AI agent explosion is part of the tech industry’s effort to squeeze more capabilities out of its vast investments in AI technologies. Microsoft has released its own AI agent builder as part of its Copilot Studio, while Google has its Vertex AI Agent Builder.
Oracle’s announcement comes after the company’s chairman, Larry Ellison, joined OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce their joint Stargate Project. The venture seeks to spend as much as $500 billion constructing AI data centers across the US.
Oracle’s cloud service ranks below that of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in terms of overall market share, but the company is riding the same AI wave as its larger competitors. In Q2, Oracle reported earnings just short of analysts’ estimates, sending shares falling following the announcement.
That said, cloud infrastructure revenue for the quarter rose 52% to $2.4 billion, while cloud application revenue jumped 10% to $3.5 billion.
Shares of Oracle have risen sharply throughout the last year, climbing 41% over the last 12 months. That’s far better than Microsoft’s 7% increase and Google’s 27% improvement. Amazon, however, has Oracle beat, jumping 47% in the last year.
