Oracle's Head of EPM on the AI Era: What Finance Leaders Must Do Now With Hari Sankar
Welcome to The Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Era — a deep-dive conversation between Hari Sankar, SVP of ERP/EPM Product at Oracle, and Nihar Parikh, CEO of EPMI. Recorded live at Oracle AI World, this episode explores how AI is transforming finance, operations, and enterprise performance management from the inside out.
Hari unpacks how Oracle Cloud EPM and ERP are converging to create a continuous, intelligent enterprise — where automation, predictive analytics, and generative insights redefine what’s possible for CFOs, FP&A leaders, and finance innovators.
From understanding the differences between EPM and ERP to exploring Oracle’s agentic AI roadmap, this episode reveals how AI is moving from concept to reality across industries.
What You’ll Learn
How Oracle is integrating AI natively into its cloud applications — not as a bolt-on, but as a built-in layer of intelligence
The real-world ROI enterprises are seeing from predictive and generative AI in finance
How to start small, prove value, and scale AI adoption across departments
Why embedded, contextual AI gives Oracle a unique advantage over competitors
How EPM and ERP convergence enables continuous planning, forecasting, and financial close
What the next 5 years of enterprise AI will look like — and how to stay ahead
Episode Chapters
00:00 – Introduction
01:55 – What’s the difference between Oracle ERP and EPM?
05:40 – What’s new with AI in Oracle Cloud?
07:34 – How AI gets applied to finance
19:08 – How to get started with AI and understand ROI
28:10 – How Oracle is differentiating in the AI era
38:27 – AI use cases by industry
41:22 – Oracle’s AI differentiation and data security
53:12 – The future of AI in enterprise finance
Quotes from Hari Sankar
“AI isn’t a feature — it’s a foundation. We’re embedding intelligence across every layer of Oracle Cloud so that finance can think, plan, and act in real time.”
“The smartest way to start your AI journey? Start small, prove value, and let success scale across the enterprise.”
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About the Guests
Hari Sankar – SVP, ERP/EPM Product at Oracle
Hari leads Oracle’s strategy for Enterprise Performance Management and ERP applications. With over two decades of experience spanning database, analytics, and cloud strategy, he’s helping shape Oracle’s vision for intelligent finance and enterprise transformation.
Nihar Parikh – CEO and Co-Founder, EPMI
Nihar leads EPMI, a leading Oracle Cloud AI, EPM, and ERP partner helping enterprises modernize finance, automate workflows, and adopt AI-powered cloud solutions.