Why This Matters to Distributors: SYSPRO is moving artificial intelligence beyond answering questions and generating recommendations. Its new Torque platform is designed to identify operational problems, recommend responses and take approved actions within enterprise resource planning and other business systems. Distributors are already participating in the platform’s controlled rollout, including companies with more than $2 billion in revenue.
SYSPRO is rolling out an artificial intelligence platform designed to give manufacturers and distributors AI agents that can identify operational problems, recommend responses, and carry out approved actions within existing business systems.
The enterprise resource planning (ERP) software provider launched SYSPRO Torque on Sept. 2. The company said the platform is designed to connect AI directly with ERP, inventory, warehouse, and other operating systems rather than function primarily as a stand-alone chatbot or assistant.
Torque entered controlled availability in August with manufacturers and distributors in the food and beverage, industrial equipment, and fabricated metals sectors, according to SYSPRO. Participants range from midsize companies to distributors with more than $2 billion in revenue.
SYSPRO did not identify the distributors participating in the program.
The launch comes as software providers increasingly develop agentic AI systems capable of performing defined business tasks instead of simply generating information or recommendations. For distributors, that could extend AI into functions including inventory management, procurement, customer service, planning and finance.
SYSPRO said Torque can combine information from orders, inventory, suppliers, and operating schedules to identify problems and determine potential responses. The platform is designed to work with different ERP systems, although SYSPRO said it provides deeper integration with the company’s own software.
Torque also can connect with warehouse systems and other operational technology and operate across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, according to the company.
A key part of the platform is determining how much authority an AI agent receives.
Companies can require human approval before an agent takes an action or authorize it to execute established, repeatable workflows automatically. SYSPRO said actions are logged along with the business rules and data used to reach a decision, providing a record of how the system reached and executed its conclusions.
SYSPRO said employees also can use plain-language instructions to describe the work they want an AI agent to perform. Torque then creates the agent without requiring the employee to write the underlying code.
That approach could make it easier for distributors to apply AI to specific operating processes without requiring managers to develop their own software. The extent to which companies allow those agents to act without human approval, however, remains under their control.
SYSPRO said Torque incorporates a manufacturing knowledge graph based on nearly five decades of industry practices. The platform can also connect with manufacturing execution systems, warehouse hardware, and other operational data sources.
Companies participating in the controlled rollout are working with SYSPRO to determine which decisions Torque should recommend, which actions agents can execute and how the results should be measured.
The company said Torque uses usage-based pricing, allowing customers to begin with a single workflow and expand to additional agents.
For distributors, the more significant test will be whether AI agents can move from limited pilots into routine operating processes while maintaining controls over the decisions they make and the actions they take.
The participation of distributors with more than $2 billion in revenue gives SYSPRO an opportunity to test that model in larger and more complex distribution operations.
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