EBS is still moving forward: reflections from Ascend 2026

Debra Lilley reflects on what the latest updates on EBS support, documentation, technology and AI mean for customers 

A few weeks ago, I attended and spoke at Ascend, as I’ve done for many years now. Ascend is the conference for the Oracle User Groups, OATUG and OHUG. It covers a wide remit of applications and underpinning technology and is the unofficial home of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS).

Here are my high-level thoughts on the messages shared by the experts at Ascend 2026.

New EBS development lead

Last year at Oracle AI World, Inoapps sponsored a round table for EBS customers. Cliff Godwin was asked what happens to the community when he leaves and his answer was that he had a great team behind him that would step up.

Since then, Cliff has retired and Lisa Parekh, who has been in that development team even longer than Cliff, has taken on the role of head of development. At Ascend, Dr Nadia Bendjedou, VP Product Strategy, introduced Lisa to the community at Lisa's keynote.

Still no end in sight for EBS

The session started as ever with Oracle’s commitment to E-Business Suite. I think most customers now understand that support is rolling, but Lisa added the nuance that when the time comes, there will be 10 years’ notice, and that notice period has not yet started.

What’s new in EBS documentation?

In the latest release 12.2.15, there are again many new features, but what appealed to me was the new approach to the documentation led by Jeanne Lowell. EBS has now adopted a ‘What's New’ approach to the documentation as we have in Fusion applications, which is searchable with your favorite search engine and its embedded AI.

Currently 12.2.15 is in this new format and they have rewritten 12.2.14 and 12.2.13 the same way and are working on other versions in reverse order. Check them out. This is such an easy way of looking at what’s been released—and remember there may be value for you in the intermediate releases, not just the last release.

Technology changes

EBS is about to have a technology upgrade, moving Middleware to 14c. Normally the uptake would be slow. Organizations have made big changes to their systems, and an upgrade means a lot of testing. However, these changes will mean technology and application are separated and the tech stack upgrade will be independent of the application.

This is currently in beta testing with a few customers, but you can follow the progress and understand the process by following Elke Phelps series on their blog.

Hosting of E-Business Suite

Often an upgrade has an impact on your hardware, and this is just one of the reasons customers move to a cloud hosting solution for EBS. Oracle states that over half of EBS customers are on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

Renewed interest in ECC

Enterprise Command Centers again has lots of new features and I’m seeing a renewed interest in ECC. Some organizations who tried it in its early days and didn't feel it gave them enough additional value are looking again. The Oracle demos of ECC are showing much more functionality. My own point of view has been that many customers believe that they have solved these problems with their investment in third party tools, but ECC is aimed at operational intelligence and there is so much it offers.

AI: Ask EBS

Part of the reason for the renewed interest in ECC is that this is the architecture of the data being used as the base for Ask EBS—the AI that’s been documented for the community.

Just a reminder, as I see this as a myth: you do not need to implement or have ECC in order to use AI. It just uses the same views and you just run that part of the process to give you the basis for the AI.

Oracle does not deliver the AI or Ask EBS as a patch. There is a white paper for the latest information about Oracle E-Business Suite Natural Language Query (NLQ): Enabling Natural Language Query of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Release 12.2, Leveraging Oracle Generative AI (MOS Article KB859326, Formerly MOS Note 3059877.1 ). This explains how you build it and includes all the steps.

Each time this is presented, there is a caution given that you must, when starting your project, redownload the document as it is a living document and the one that you looked at a few weeks ago may not be the current version.

At Ascend, two big changes were highlighted: previously you needed an autonomous version of the database. This is no longer the case as you can use 26ai without autonomous. The second change is you can use your own favorite LLM.

Built on AI, made easier?

In my sessions and when I talk about Ask EBS, I finish by saying that AI may be the tipping point for customers to move to Fusion. The reasoning behind this is that, for any data source that is not an Oracle Cloud product, you have to build the AI yourself. So for Apps Unlimited, that means building the AI.

Oracle Ask EBS is doing this using the Select AI Service, which allows you to ask natural language queries and get a response from your EBS system. My belief is that for every challenge, and for every requirement, you are going to have to build the AI solution. And, as I explained, getting information from the EBS database has been an issue since the beginning of time.

In the Oracle ecosystem these challenges are addressed by third party organizations—partners who build a solution that can be bolted on to your EBS. As with any applications conference, Ascend had a significant number of these third parties who are successful providing solutions to the community. I've always said that these ISV's see a gap and then bridge it—and sometimes Oracle catches up quickly, and sometimes it takes longer.

There are many successful partners in this area, and at Ascend I saw both established partners adding AI to their portfolio, and others dipping their toes into the market with new solutions for AI in EBS. My own employer, Inoapps, recently announced the acquisition of JDE partner KS2 who have built some incredible solutions for AI within JD Edwards. Expect more on AI for Apps Unlimited at Oracle AI World.

Modernizing is more than just AI

Most people are talking about Generative or agentic AI, but classic AI is also modernizing EBS. I’m seeing a lot going on here, from automation to document imaging. APEX is also an excellent tool for modernizing your EBS, alongside integrations through OCI.

Conclusion

EBS is certainly not dead, and the organizations using it are not standing still. They’re moving forward at their pace in all areas.

Ready to get more from your EBS? Take a look at our Oracle E-Business Suite Services to see how we can help you modernize, extend and manage your environment.