Beyond the ERP System: The Autonomous Value Chain
CIO.com, Tuesday, June 16th, 2026
Legacy ERP systems with human middleware cannot match autonomous value chains driven by AI agents and digital threads.
The article argues that traditional ERP systems have reached their maximum theoretical throughput and cannot be salvaged with incremental improvements. Author Jason Brady contends organizations must shift from human-mediated coordination to algorithmic orchestration via autonomous value chains.
Key requirements include a high-trust business network, a single digital thread as the authoritative source, composable processes for AI agents, frictionless data flow, and mapping decision waste.
The shift demands cultural change: automating tasks rather than eliminating people, treating the value stream as a product, and establishing psychological safety so teams adopt autonomous systems instead of resisting them with workarounds.