MH AI Chat for Epicor Prophet 21 (P21) — What If You Could Just Ask Your ERP?
Ask MH AI for P21. Explore Your Business Data. Keep the Conversation Going.
What if getting information from Prophet 21 could start with a question instead of a report?
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“Hey MH — who are my top-performing customers this year?”
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“Show me five years of sales for this item by month.”
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“Based on those results, forecast the next six months.”
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“Now factor in seasonality. What should I be buying right now?”
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"Now include the related data from our other connected systems. Does that change the recommendation."
MindHARBOR is developing and pilot-testing MH ERP AI for Epicor Prophet 21 (P21) — a conversational AI solution that allows authorized users to interact with P21 and other connected business data using natural language.
Instead of finding the right report, exporting data to Excel, waiting for someone to write a query, or starting a new analysis from scratch, users can simply begin with the business question.
MH AI can dynamically build the appropriate query, retrieve and analyze authorized data, visualize the results, and provide the underlying information for review.
And the conversation doesn’t necessarily have to stop at P21.
For companies operating across multiple systems, MH ERP AI can potentially bring together authorized data from Prophet 21, Epicor Kinetic, CRM platforms, ecommerce systems, warehouse applications, custom databases, reporting systems and other connected business applications — giving users a more complete view of what is happening across the business.
Then ask another question...and the conversation becomes the analysis.
Example from MindHARBOR's current P21 AI pilot environment:
a natural-language question dynamically retrieves and visualizes underlying Prophet 21 data.
More Than an AI Chatbot
Putting a chat window in front of an ERP isn't particularly interesting by itself.
Giving people a new way to explore, understand and interact with their business data is.
Ask MH AI for P21 is being designed to help authorized users move naturally from a question to the underlying data — and then continue exploring what that information means.
A sales manager might ask who the top-performing customers are.
A salesperson could ask the same question and receive information appropriate to that user's authorized sales context.
A purchasing team might investigate item history, supplier performance, inventory or demand patterns.
Management could explore trends, exceptions and operational questions without knowing beforehand exactly which report, table or query contains the answer.
And when relevant information lives outside Prophet 21, Ask MH AI for P21 can potentially work with other authorized data sources and connected business systems as part of the conversation.
The question doesn't have to end with the first result.
Ask. Explore. Drill deeper. Compare. Analyze. Ask again.
From “Show Me” to “Help Me Decide”
1. SHOW ME
“Hey MH — show me five years of sales for this item by month.”
MH AI for P21 dynamically builds and executes the appropriate query against authorized data — including the underlying information and visualization.
2. ANALYZE IT
“Based on these results, forecast the next six months.”
Without starting over, the conversation moves into analysis — examining historical trends, seasonality, recent performance and assumptions.
3. HELP ME DECIDE
“Based on everything we've looked at, what should I be buying right now?”
Now the conversation becomes a business decision. Ask MH AI for P21 can evaluate what it has already learned, identify anomalies and provide a recommended course of action along with the assumptions, reasoning and caveats behind it.
Ask → Explore → Analyze → Decide
That's a very different experience from running another static report.
Your Business Data Still Belongs to You
One of the first questions organizations should ask about enterprise AI isn't what model it uses.
It's: Where is our data going?
Prophet 21 and other business systems can contain some of a company's most sensitive operational information — customers, pricing, margins, purchasing, inventory, suppliers, transactions and business history.
MindHARBOR is developing Ask MH AI for P21 with data control, privacy, security and authorized access as core design considerations.
Depending on the customer's requirements and environment, Ask MH AI for P21 can be architected around customer-controlled infrastructure and approved data sources.
Where external AI services are appropriate, the architecture can also incorporate third-party AI capabilities with controls around what information is provided to those services.
That gives organizations options rather than requiring business data to be pushed indiscriminately into a public AI platform.
And because Ask MH AI for P21 isn't designed around a single ERP, the same approach can potentially work with other approved databases, applications and business data sources.
Your business data is your business. AI shouldn't require giving up control of it.
AI Without the Black Box
Getting an answer isn't enough.
Business users need to understand where the answer came from, what information was used, what assumptions were made and when human judgment is still required.
The current Ask MH AI for P21 environment is being developed to provide visibility into the information behind the conversation — including underlying result data, generated queries, analysis and assumptions.
The prototype itself illustrates why that matters: when historical data contained conflicting seasonal signals, the analysis identified those anomalies and surfaced them as caveats rather than simply hiding them behind an answer.
AI should help people make better decisions — not ask them to blindly trust an answer.
What Could You Ask MH AI for P21?
Hey MH...
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“Who are my top customers this quarter?”
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“Which customers haven't ordered recently?”
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“Show me sales for this product for the last five years.”
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“Which items are declining compared with last year?”
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“Who are my largest suppliers?”
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“Show me unusual changes in purchasing.”
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“Which products have the strongest seasonality?”
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“Compare this year's sales with last year.”
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“Which inventory hasn't moved in the last 12 months?”
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“Which customers are buying less from us than they normally do?”
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“Where are we seeing unusual changes in margin?”
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“Which orders, items or customers should I be paying attention to?”
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“Based on this history, what questions should I be asking?”
Those are examples, not predefined reports. The idea is to let the business question drive the interaction.
And where appropriate, that question may extend beyond P21 into other authorized business data.
Built Around Your P21 Environment — And Your Business
Every Prophet 21 environment is different.
Companies have different data structures, customizations, business rules, integrations, security requirements, workflows and definitions of what matters.
They may also have important business information living outside P21 — in another ERP such as Epicor Kinetic, a CRM, ecommerce platform, warehouse application, custom database, reporting environment or other integrated system.
That's why we're approaching Ask MH AI for P21 the same way we approach other MindHARBOR development and integration projects:
Understand the business problem. Understand the data. Control access. Connect what matters. Test the results. Expand where it creates value.
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No giant AI transformation initiative required.
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No assumption that every problem needs AI.
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No requirement to replace P21 processes that already work.
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And no assumption that all of the answers live in a single system.
Ask MH AI for P21 starts with Prophet 21 — but the business question doesn't necessarily have to stop there.
Currently in Pilot Testing
We're kicking the tires ourselves — and inviting a limited number of P21 users to help us kick them harder.
MindHARBOR is currently developing and pilot-testing Ask MH AI for P21 with a small group of users as we continue refining the interface, data access, security, analysis and practical business use cases.
We're particularly interested in real-world questions that are difficult, time-consuming or cumbersome to answer today — whether the information lives entirely within P21 or spans other connected business data.
If you'd like to explore what Ask MH AI for P21 could do with your Prophet 21 environment, we'd like to hear from you.
Looking at the Bigger AI Picture?
Ask MH AI for P21 is one practical example of how AI can be applied to ERP and operational business data.
Learn more about Artificial Intelligence, Agentic AI, LLMs, RAG, MCP, data security and practical AI applications for Prophet 21 in our broader AI & Digital Intelligence resource center.
