KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, at its UNITE 2026 customer conference, Aptean, a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software, announced Aptean Ascent, an AI-powered offering designed to help manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers move past the roadblocks stalling most AI projects. Ascent combines Aptean’s industry experts, innovative solutions and purpose-built AI agents to deliver measurable business outcomes.
The Gap Aptean Ascent Closes
Manufacturers and distributors are under increased pressure in the face of tightening margins, labor shortages, and continuous shifts in supply chains. Organizations acknowledge AI presents the opportunity to supercharge business performance and avoid falling behind rivals who are improving each quarter.
However, many of the early AI pilots are failing. They fade out quietly or lose momentum at the execution stage when the hard work of making it happen falls back on the customer. A recent Aptean study found the expectations around AI are still outpacing outcomes with 82.5% of respondents agreeing AI’s value is clear but hasn’t been fully realized yet.
This is the gap Ascent is built to close. Ascent helps customers discover and validate the highest-value AI opportunities, anchored in their business benchmarks and current operating performance. Aptean and each customer start by agreeing on clear, measurable goals. From there, Aptean is measured on how well it delivers against them. The results are delivered, validated, and owned as much by Aptean as by the customer.
“Our customers don’t need another pilot or another roadmap. They want business outcomes and need a partner who’ll stay in the room until the work pays off,” said TVN Reddy, CEO, Aptean. “Ascent combines what we know about their industries, the software they already run, and the AI agents we’ve built for their operations, then holds all of it to one set of measurable goals. This is how AI stops being an experiment and starts showing up on the bottom line.”
Proof in Practice
FreshEdge, a leading family of fresh food distribution companies, has partnered with Aptean for continuous enterprise transformation. FreshEdge leadership and the Ascent team worked together to identify and address the most significant AI opportunities using FreshEdge’s data, Ascent’s industry focused benchmarks and the operating context.
“In five days, Ascent’s deep industry expertise helped us move from AI ambition to an actionable blueprint – grounded in our data and built around how our business actually operates,” said Brando Corsaro, Vice President of Information Technology, FreshEdge.
How it Works
Ascent turns assessment into action and action into proof through a repeatable 30/60/90 cadence. Each engagement starts with a value assessment that benchmarks performance, identifies the highest-value opportunities, and aligns baselines, owners and success measures. In the first 30 days, Aptean maps the operating reality and establishes the governed data, decision and AI foundation. By day 60, the first agents are active in live workflows. Through day 90, agents and workflows are optimized against financial and operating results. Customer validates realized value and decides what to scale or redesign, and which opportunity enters the next cycle.
Aptean backs Ascent with real investment in industry assets, forward-deployed engineers, and delivery capacity. With a portion of Aptean's economics tied to the outcomes created, the targets are specific: revenue, margin, service, inventory, and scale – not vague promises of transformation.
"The true opportunity of AI is to increase both the magnitude of business value, and the speed at which it's realized," said Sanjiv Gupta, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Aptean Ascent. "Value realization isn't the final phase. It's at the heart of the entire continuing partnership."
Learn More
Ascent is available now to Aptean customers. Learn more and request your value assessment at http://www.aptean.com/aptean-ascent
About Aptean
Aptean is an AI company that is changing how manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers operate. Facing rising costs, shrinking margins, and operational complexity, Aptean embeds AI directly into their workflows, decisions, and data that their business already runs on - so intelligence isn't a bolt-on; it's how the work gets done. The result leads to: faster decisions, lower costs, and measurable margin improvement delivered through an ongoing partnership, not a one-off implementation. Learn more at www.aptean.com
Media Contact
Heather Coyle, Sr. Principal, Marketing Communications
mediarelations@aptean.com
