Champion Assist, a natural-language interface built into Adaptive ERP, and a new Accounts Payable Champion, the latest AI agent designed for invoice-to-payment workflows, are now generally available.

QAD Source, an ERP-agnostic intelligent sourcing platform purpose-built for manufacturing, is now generally available with Champion Assist embedded natively for conversational access to live sourcing and supplier data.

Champions of Manufacturing — QAD | Redzone, the company behind the world’s number one platform for manufacturers, announced a major expansion of ChampionAI, the agentic AI engine that runs the entire QAD | Redzone platform: Champion Assist, a conversational interface inside Adaptive ERP, and the new Accounts Payable Champion, an AI agent that manages the invoice-to-payment workflow.

“Manufacturers shouldn’t have to choose between modernizing their ERP and creating value today,” said Amit Sharma, President – Manufacturing ERP at QAD | Redzone. “Adaptive gives them the intelligent backbone they need for what comes next, as Champion Assist and our expanding portfolio of Champions enable them to start solving real business problems now. Our goal is simple: meet customers where they are and give them the fastest, most practical path to measurable value.”

A Conversational Interface and a New Accounts Payable AI Agent

Champion Assist is a conversational layer, similar to a copilot, embedded natively inside Adaptive ERP as a standard capability for Adaptive ERP users. A buyer can ask which blanket orders are nearing expiration instead of running a report. A finance user can ask for budget-to-actual by entity and period instead of opening three screens. It's a faster way to work with the data you already have, without the need to change your ERP configuration.

Champions work differently. Instead of waiting to be asked, a Champion runs continuously in the background of a specific workflow, watching for the events that matter and handling the routine work itself. It brings in a person only for the decisions that need one. The Accounts Payable Champion joins a suite of other persona-based Champions already live in production.

What the Accounts Payable Champion Does

The Accounts Payable Champion takes an invoice from receipt to payment-ready without a clerk keying or matching it by hand. It pulls invoices in from email, supplier portals and EDI, reads them regardless of format, and checks each one against its purchase order and receipt. Invoices that match are cleared straight to payment. Only real exceptions, like a mismatch, a missing receipt, or a dispute, land in front of a person.

Catching invoices faster protects early-payment discounts and shortens days payable outstanding. In production, customers using this level of automation have seen:

• Invoice processing costs drop by roughly half
• 90% of purchase orders auto-matched through three-way matching
• 95% accuracy extracting data from scanned invoices

ChampionAI Works with Any ERP

Every Champion runs on its own platform, separate from a customer’s ERP or MES. The Accounts Payable Champion deploys without touching legacy code or waiting on a migration, and works with SAP, Infor, Epicor and QAD ERP versions back to Enterprise Edition 2016. A manufacturer can put it to work on a backlog of invoices today, whether or not they're on Adaptive ERP.

For manufacturers already on QAD Adaptive ERP, the same investment builds over time. Adaptive ERP is built as a modern system of action rather than a static system of record, so the workflows Champion Assist and the Champions already automate get easier to extend as a business grows. Whether starting with AI now or modernizing the ERP later, manufacturers have a path to start on today through Champion Advantage, QAD’s AI-led approach to modernization.

QAD Source: Intelligent Procurement, Purpose-Built for Manufacturing

QAD | Redzone is also bringing QAD Source, its standalone, ERP-agnostic intelligent sourcing platform, to general availability.

Most procurement software is built for generic purchasing. QAD Source is built for a buyer whose bad call can stop a production line, and where a supplier that slips a lead time doesn't just create a contract variance, it stalls the floor. QAD Source's agentic capabilities are trained on qualified supplier networks, production-linked lead times, and the kind of capacity constraints a generic procurement tool isn't built to see.

Champion Assist also runs natively inside QAD Source, giving buyers a conversational way to work with live supplier and sourcing data instead of running reports. Buyers can compare bids across price, terms, and compliance; put together a supplier award nomination from performance and certification history; monitor supplier risk in real time instead of waiting on a periodic review; and scout new, qualified suppliers by category, geography, or certification. And because Champion Assist is built into QAD Source itself, it inherits the access controls and audit history already in place, the same way it does in Adaptive ERP.

Expanding Adaptive ERP’s Functional Depth

Alongside the AI additions, QAD | Redzone closed several functional gaps that manufacturers have historically patched with third-party tools: new France eDocument Compliance capabilities, native warehouse cycle counting with full job and task support, Food and Beverage yield and scrap reporting, and a redesigned Equipment Hierarchy view in Enterprise Asset Management.

This announcement is part of QAD | Redzone’s broader Manufacturing Intelligence vision unveiled today at Champions of Manufacturing. For more information, visit the QAD Blog.

Champions of Manufacturing 2026 Sponsors

A special thanks to all of the Champions of Manufacturing event sponsors:

• Adaptivity
• AJS
• Ambit
• Argon & Co
• Arista Consulting
• AWS
• Boomi
• Cyberscience
• DocLib
• Eagle
• eSquared
• ESKER
• Factivity
• IPM (Integrated Project Management)
• ISS Group
• Logan Consulting
• Nagarro
• Progress OpenEdge
• Roundview Technologies
• Snowflake
• Strategic Information Group
• Tata Consultancy Services

About QAD | Redzone

QAD | Redzone is redefining manufacturing and supply chains through its intelligent, adaptive platform that connects people, processes, and technology into a single System of Action. With three core pillars — Redzone (frontline empowerment), Adaptive Applications (the intelligent backbone), and ChampionAI (agentic AI for manufacturing) — QAD | Redzone helps manufacturers operate with Champion Pace, achieving measurable productivity, resilience, and growth in as little as 90 days. To learn more, visit www.qad.com or call +1 805-566-6100. Find us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260922297202/en/

“Manufacturers shouldn’t have to choose between modernizing their ERP and creating value today.”