Highlights from Oracle AI World 2025

By Chad Wappes, President, NZOUG

Oracle AI World 2025 delivered a sweeping set of announcements that signal a major shift in how Oracle positions itself in the global technology landscape. As the Oracle community here in Aotearoa, it’s important for NZOUG members to understand these developments and what they mean for our work, our organisations, and the future of Oracle technology in New Zealand.

Below are the biggest highlights and take-aways.

1. Oracle sets a new direction with AI at the centre

One of the most significant changes is the rebrand from Oracle CloudWorld to Oracle AI World, reflecting Oracle’s recognition that AI is no longer an add-on — it’s the foundation of its cloud, applications and data ecosystem.

Analysts described the conference as a “first look under new command,” highlighting Oracle’s leadership transition and renewed focus on enterprise-grade AI across infrastructure, applications, and data platforms.

Why this matters for NZ:

Expect AI capabilities to become the default in Oracle products. Upgrades, project planning, and skills development will increasingly revolve around AI-embedded workflows.

2. Major announcements: Database, Infrastructure & AI Agents

Oracle AI Database 26ai

The next major evolution of the Oracle Database introduces:

• Native vector search

• Unified relational/JSON/graph/spatial/AI workloads

• Integration with external LLMs

• Native support for open table formats like Apache Iceberg

This positions the database as not just a place to store data, but a full AI-ready engine.

OCI Super-Scale Infrastructure

Oracle announced massive compute clusters designed for enterprise-scale AI training and inference. This includes tens of thousands of GPUs and next-generation supercluster designs.

AI Agent Marketplace

Oracle revealed a new ecosystem for deploying AI-powered “agents” across Fusion Applications — Finance, HR, ERP, SCM, Customer Experience and more.

Partners can create agents; customers can install them; and governance is built in.

Oracle AI Data Platform

A unified layer for data ingestion, preparation, semantic enrichment and generative-AI workloads — designed to simplify and standardise enterprise AI pipelines.

3. Real business outcomes take centre stage

Oracle’s key narrative this year wasn’t about hype — it was about results.

Customer examples highlighted improvements in:

• Supply chain automation

• Customer experience and loyalty

• Finance and compliance automation

• Decision making from unified real-time data

NZ perspective:

When exploring AI adoption, NZ organisations should focus on value: process improvement, cost reduction, automation and decision support.

4. The rise of AI agents

AI agents were reinforced as the next evolution of enterprise automation. Unlike traditional chatbots, agentic systems can take action, coordinate tasks, and adapt with context.

Key capabilities highlighted included:

• Natural-language querying and report generation

• Low-code/no-code agent creation

• Application-embedded agents within Oracle Fusion

• Strong guardrails to prevent hallucinations and ensure trust

What this means here:

As Oracle Fusion adoption grows in NZ, AI agents will become a major capability differentiator in HR, Finance and operational processes.

5. Multi-cloud, open standards and data freedom

Oracle reinforced its commitment to open data ecosystems, allowing customers to:

• Use Iceberg, Delta and Parquet

• Run workloads across multiple clouds

• Access external LLMs

• Integrate heterogeneous data sources

NZ impact:

With so many NZ organisations running hybrid or multi-cloud environments, Oracle’s “open AI” approach supports real-world architectural needs.

6. A new pricing approach: AI as included value

One of the most significant strategy shifts: Oracle is embedding many AI capabilities into existing products with no added licence cost. Analysts highlighted this as a major disruptor because competitors often add a premium “AI tax”.

Implications:

AI becomes a baseline capability — not a separate cost centre.

For NZ budgeting, migration and upgrade decisions, this changes the business case conversation entirely.

7. What NZ organisations should focus on next

Here are the key take-aways for our Oracle community:

• Skills evolution: AI agents, vector databases, LLM orchestration and AI governance will become core skills.

• Data readiness: High-quality, well-governed data is now essential for AI capability.

• Governance & ethics: NZ entities must adopt frameworks around responsible AI use.

• Architecture planning: Migrations, upgrades and cloud planning should now incorporate AI readiness.

• Partner ecosystem: Expect NZ partners and integrators to begin offering AI-agent solutions and generative AI enhancements to Fusion and OCI workloads.

Final thoughts

Oracle AI World 2025 made one thing clear: AI is now at the heart of Oracle’s vision. For NZOUG members and Oracle professionals across Aotearoa, this represents a major opportunity — to modernise, innovate and help our organisations harness the next wave of intelligent enterprise technologies.

As always, NZOUG will continue to support our community with learning, discussion and shared experience as we navigate this new AI-powered Oracle landscape.