Epicor unveils AI-powered catalog and integrated product platform for 2026

Epicor, the automotive aftermarket software company based in Austin, Texas, outlined its 2026 product roadmap during a media briefing at AAPEX on Nov. 5, highlighting its continued investments in artificial intelligence and data integration across its core product offerings.

The centerpiece of Epicor's strategy is its updated electronic catalog, a multi-million dollar investment the company makes to further market-level innovation for precision, accuracy, and improved efficiency for its customers. The company created the first electronic catalog in the automotive aftermarket in 1984 and now serves more than 100,000 rooftops, from manufacturers and distributors to service shops.

The updated catalog has been released in Mexico and the United States and integrated with Epicor's Vision ERP platform. The company plans to expand the catalog's offering into heavy-duty and performance categories.

Epicor is leveraging its position as an industry data aggregator to integrate artificial intelligence throughout its product suite. The company collects invoice data, inventory data and repair order information from distributors and service shops across the U.S., which it normalizes and combines with its catalog data to power AI recommendations.

"We are a data aggregator; we get all the invoice data, all of the inventory data from all the distributors throughout the U.S. We get repair order data through our CRM, and it's all data that we understand. We've normalized it. We put it on top of our catalog," said Suellyn Sprague, VP, General Manager, Automotive Product Development at Epicor. "So we are very well positioned to bring AI into the aftermarket, because we've got the data that we know is right and normalized and clean."

Epicor is launching Parts Lane, a new B2B platform that embeds the modernized catalog with AI capabilities. The platform provides recommendations based on industry sales trends and related parts needs, similar to shopping interfaces that customers encounter on Amazon. Parts Lane is undergoing certification with Mitchell One, with expected completion in December or January.

The company recently acquired Selenium and is integrating its product information management and digital asset management tools with the catalog and analytics platform. This integration enables manufacturers to identify gaps in product data while viewing Epicor's analytics.

Sprague said Epicor is continuing to invest in next-generation retail solutions that help distributors with retail storefronts enable customers to look up and print information about parts, addressing confusion customers face in physical stores.

"I honestly think that's what I'm the most excited about," Sprague said of Epicor's connected data strategy. "The ability to thread our products together so that from start to finish, you stay within our applications with anything that you're doing with data, whether it's normalizing data, whether it's a catalog, whether it's running analytics, whether it's delivering data to your customers, getting data from your vendors that all of our products are all woven together to make that a seamless experience for the user."