It’s a season of opportunity for Infor Inc. The software maker specializing in enterprise resource planning is flush with funding and acquisitions, but most importantly human potential. That’s the theme of Infor’s trade show this year, as chief executive officer Charles Phillips (pictured) begins to unveil the fruits of Infor’s labor in the fields of artificial intelligence and automation.

Always eager to differentiate from other ERP software providers, Infor has invested in bleeding edge technologies, such as AI, to extend increasingly customized solutions spanning various industries. From healthcare to manufacturing, Infor has adapted its last-mile strategy across several verticals, with a true public cloud position to stay agile and focused on software maintenance.

The strategy has paid off, with Infor’s software as a service subscriptions up 35 percent since last year. With a $2 billion infusion from the Koch Brothers in 2017 and a string of strategic acquisitions in the realm of AI and analytics, Infor is ready to imbue its entire portfolio with new AI powers.

“We’re entering a new phase, and it’s the phase of what Charles Phillips coined ‘human potential,'” said Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio. “So, big focus this year on human capital management … on AI — they talked a lot about robotic process automation.”

Vellante was joined by John Walls (@JohnWalls21) to analyze the day 1 keynote at Inforum 2018 in Washington, D.C. (* Disclosure below.)

A new phase for AI at Infor

An alarming factoid shared during the keynote was a growing gap between the job openings and the number of qualified workers in the United States, causing an overall decline in productivity. Despite fears that intelligent machines could soon take over human jobs in the workforce, Infor recognizes AI’s ability to empower humans and aid existing jobs.

“[Phillips wants to] use artificial intelligence to monitor people’s [key performance indicators] … and provide feedback on outcomes,” Vellante said. “Also analyzing other factors … for example, using data to analyze the relationship between, say, tenure, or were you recently promoted, or turnover, on the productivity of, for instance, retail storage,” Vellante said.

The acquisition of companies such as Birst Inc., an analytics platform for business intelligence, has fueled Infor’s efforts in micro-vertical solutions. It’s an acquisition strategy Phillips perfected during his time at rival ERP provider Oracle Corp., having spent about $30 billion on acquisitions to make Oracle the powerhouse it is today.

Phillips himself has a lot of human potential, according to Vellante. “This is an individual with a military background. He became a highly successful Wall Street analyst. He wrote the seminal piece in the ’90s that said the software industry has too many software players, and it’s going to consolidate,” he said. “[Oracle founder] Larry Ellison, prior to reading that, used to degenerate competitors for writing checks, not code, meaning his competitors were acquiring companies instead of innovating. Now you see Oracle as a SaaS powerhouse from the many companies that were bought in.”

Once at Infor, Phillips architected an entirely new strategy with a revamped operating system that takes AI to the last mile. Having launched its own AI platform, Coleman, Infor is working to use automation and AI to coach workers as they’re doing their jobs.

For its continued success and AI-ready rollouts, Infor remains a promising investment for the Koch Brothers. As a hefty portion of Koch’s current $15 billion investment in technology, Infor is demonstrating its own potential to return dividends.

“Koch is using its organization as a test lab for a lot of products and services that Infor is producing and allowing them to refine that under the Koch umbrella before they take it out to the marketplace,” Walls stated.

“That’s patient capital,” Vellante said. “[Koch] can probably take dividends if they want to do that. And if they’re smart and they invest, and they can take market share from Oracle and SAP and others and gain share in the market space, they can do an [initial public offering].”

After Koch’s investment, Infor is valued at $15 billion, according to Vellante. “So, if they can take that $15 billion to … $20 to $30 billion, there’s going to be a nice return,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Inforum 2018. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Inforum 2018. Neither Infor Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo by Infor