At this year’s SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas, Oracle NetSuite unveiled major updates to its SuiteCloud Developer Network (SDN), marking another step toward accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) adoption among businesses. The updates aim to help partners build, verify, and deliver AI-powered applications faster—potentially giving small and midsize businesses (SMBs) new ways to automate workflows, strengthen compliance, and enhance decision-making through trusted AI integrations.

For small business owners already using or considering NetSuite’s cloud ERP, the announcement signals a clear shift: AI is no longer just an optional add-on—it’s becoming an embedded part of daily business operations.

Scott Derksen, vice president of Partnerships and Business Development at Oracle NetSuite, emphasized the partner-driven nature of this growth. “NetSuite partners will play an essential role in helping our customers adopt trusted AI solutions that drive immediate business value,” Derksen said. “The latest updates to the SuiteCloud Developer Network will help our partners expand their opportunities for growth by providing them with the tools and resources to bring secure, high-performing AI solutions to market faster.”

Key Takeaways for Small Businesses

The SuiteCloud Developer Network is a long-standing developer ecosystem that allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to build apps on the NetSuite platform. The latest update introduces several key enhancements that could benefit small businesses indirectly by expanding the marketplace of available tools:

• SuiteApp.AI Marketplace: A new, dedicated marketplace for partners to showcase AI-powered SuiteApps that integrate directly into NetSuite. This means small business users could soon see a wider range of AI tools—covering everything from compliance and customer engagement to finance automation—available in one place.

• AI Certification Badges: NetSuite is introducing two new AI-specific badges that highlight trusted and secure apps.

  • AI Elite designates solutions using large language models (LLMs) hosted within Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), emphasizing enhanced data security and governance.

  • AI designates apps using SuiteCloud APIs or third-party LLMs.
    These badges could help small businesses identify which AI tools are built to higher privacy and performance standards before integrating them into their operations.

• Expanded Development Resources: NetSuite is equipping developers with tools and engineering support to build and manage AI models directly within OCI. For business users, this provides added assurance that their data and AI interactions stay within NetSuite’s secure ecosystem.

Practical Applications for SMBs

Many of the early partner applications show how AI could deliver tangible benefits to small business users. For example:

• Avalara has embedded its AI tax compliance agent, Avi, directly into NetSuite. Avi can guide users through onboarding, configuration, and compliance analysis—potentially saving small businesses hours on tax management and audit preparation.

• Contivio created CloudConnect, which combines phone, chat, and SMS with AI transcription and chatbots to streamline customer communication. This could be especially useful for small support teams that need to handle multiple communication channels efficiently.

• Legion built embedded AI agents for finance teams, offering instant data retrieval, workflow automation, and improved visibility across business systems.

• Gatekeeper’s AI Extract helps turn old contract data into searchable digital records by automatically identifying key clauses and terms, reducing manual data entry.

• Cauzzy designed AI agents that flag unusual expenses and analyze sales orders—tools that can help small business owners catch inefficiencies early and make more informed decisions.

As Derksen noted, partners will be instrumental in bringing these innovations to market quickly. Through NetSuite’s 43,000+ customer base, even small vendors developing niche solutions can reach a global audience—something that could ultimately expand the diversity of tools available to small business users.

These latest enhancements to the SuiteCloud Developer Network demonstrate a clear commitment from NetSuite to make AI more accessible, secure, and impactful for growing businesses. As partners continue to roll out new applications through the SuiteApp.AI Marketplace, small business owners will have more opportunities to adopt AI tools designed specifically for their needs—tools that not only streamline daily operations but also unlock smarter, data-driven growth across every area of the business.

This article, “NetSuite Expands Partner Program to Boost AI Tools for Small Businesses” was first published on Small Business Trends