At our in-house event, the AVA Future Forum on 10 September 2026 in Neuss, we showed what has changed in the Avantgarde Co-Pilot over the past months. And that is quite a lot. For everyone who could not make it, we have summarised the new features here – together with the questions we were asked most often at the Co-Pilot table.
What is new in the Avantgarde Co-Pilot?
In short: the Co-Pilot is no longer just a tool inside the ERP system, but an AI assistant that works where your people already work – in the browser, in the AI of their choice and soon directly in Outlook. The data stays in Sage, and Sage remains the leading system.
Behind this are four developments that we demonstrated live at the event.
1. The new web app
Since the summer, the Co-Pilot has been available as a standalone web app with a completely redesigned interface. It is faster, clearer and can be used without any local installation. At the event we showed how questions about Sage data are answered in a dialogue: “Which orders from customer X are still open?”, “How have sales of item group Y developed?” or “Which suppliers deliver item Z?” – without exports, without pivot tables.
For Sage partners, the interface is also available as a white-label version for Sage 50 and Sage 100, so partners can offer the Co-Pilot under their own brand.
2. MCP: the Co-Pilot inside every AI
Many employees already use an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT. Via the Model Context Protocol (MCP), the Co-Pilot can be connected right there. The language model thus gets controlled access to ERP data – through the interfaces and permissions the Co-Pilot defines, not through direct database access.
The advantage: companies do not have to commit to a single AI model. The connection to Sage stays the same, whichever AI sits in front of it. Background in our post MCP: The Avantgarde Co-Pilot inside every AI.
3. Coming next: the Co-Pilot in Outlook
A large share of requests reaches companies by e-mail: price enquiries, orders, questions about delivery dates. Today that means reading the e-mail, looking things up in Sage and writing a reply. That is why we are working on an Outlook integration. The Co-Pilot will prepare replies with the right Sage data directly from the e-mail – a person checks and sends.
4. Sage 100 AI Business Agent powered by Avantgarde
For Sage 100 customers, our solution is also available directly through Sage as the Sage 100 AI Business Agent powered by Avantgarde. The principle stays the same: Sage 100 is the central data source, and AI supports concrete tasks – in sales and customer service, purchasing and inventory, accounting and controlling, and production and quality.
Does the AI get its own permissions?
No. This was one of the most frequently asked questions at the event. The Co-Pilot works exclusively with the permissions defined in the company and logs what it does. Anyone who has no access to payroll data in Sage will not get it through the AI either. This is the prerequisite for using AI in line with the GDPR and the EU AI Act.
Do you have to change your ERP system?
No. The Co-Pilot builds on the existing Sage installation – on-premises or in the cloud. There is no data migration and no system change. That lowers the entry barrier considerably: you can start with a single use case and expand step by step.
Is there funding?
The NRW.BANK.Impuls KI funding programme was a big topic at the event. In the meantime, however, NRW.BANK has closed the application portal due to high demand. Whether and when it will reopen is still open. We keep the current status up to date in our post on NRW.BANK.Impuls KI.
Would you like to try the new features yourself? Read-only access to the Co-Pilot is free at app.ava-co-pilot.de. For a demo on your own data, contact us at office@avantgar.de.
