This was my first time attending Manifest, and I couldn't have picked a better year to join the conversation. The energy in Las Vegas made one thing clear: the era of AI experimentation is over. We have officially entered the age of production-ready agentic AI.

But as I heard repeatedly across the sessions, the bottleneck isn't the technology. It is the data. For the IT architect caught between an aggressive AI push and a looming S/4HANA migration, the siloed and “bad data" dilemma is the ultimate challenge.

Why dirty data is the biggest barrier to agentic AI

Everyone is talking about AI insights, but are those insights actually clean? Apply advanced AI to inconsistent or siloed data and you produce unreliable results that destroy customer trust.

At OpenText, we connect your internal and external systems into a single, reliable digital backbone. But we do more than provide enterprise integration. We provide an AI-powered validation layer to scrub every byte of incoming data to ensure you and your AI work with information that is clean, timely, and complete.

Imagine an inbound invoice. Before it even hits your ERP, our intelligent business rules catch price discrepancies or missing bills of lading. Instead of a human spending hours on manual cleanup, the agent flags the error and requests a correction from the supplier automatically.

How to modernize S/4HANA without legacy B2B holding you back

For many CIOs, this AI evolution happens simultaneously with a S/4HANA migration or a "clean core" strategy. We find that the biggest risk in these ERP migrations isn't the internal code, it is re-integrating  external connections.

You cannot let your EDI or B2B mapping hold back your ERP modernization. We act as the strategic off-ramp for legacy complexity. While your team focuses internal operational excellence, we handle the reconfiguration of your B2B for frictionless exchange of information across your global network. And we ensure business continuity during your ERP migration so your orders and shipping do not skip a beat.

Real results: The General Mills perspective

It is one thing to talk about a "digital backbone" in a keynote, but quite another to see it in action at a global scale. General Mills selected OpenText for our massive market reach and deep expertise. They needed a partner that could future-proof their operations with GenAI, predictive analytics, and APIs.

Janaina Souza from General Mills credits this robust foundation because it powers their end-to-end visibility and control. By eliminating information silos, they turn raw data into strategic decisions. The efficiency gains speak for themselves: General Mills achieved a rapid return on investment in less than six months after they implemented OpenText B2B Integration Enterprise!

Your 2030 AI readiness roadmap starts now

The speakers at Manifest 2026 hammered home a shared truth: IT success in the coming years is defined by the move from an "ownership mindset" to an orchestrated, automated ecosystem. To stay ahead, follow their roadmap:

Build a clean, integrated data foundation

Ensure systems are integrated and data is clean. This enables better operations and sharper decisions for humans and agentic AI.

Choose scalable pilots over perfect plans

Avoid the "paralysis of analysis." Look for scalable pilots that improve the customer experience and drive the business forward.

Cultivate a company-wide culture of innovation

Foster highly diverse teams with the vision to navigate an unpredictable world. When you win, communicate those successes to the whole company.

The biggest takeaway from Manifest 2026: To win in 2030, you must act now: shift from firefighting to orchestration and trade your ownership mindset for an automated ecosystem that prioritizes clean data foundations, customer-centricity, and a culture of bold innovation.

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