Anaplan launches AI planning tools & apps for business

Anaplan has launched a new suite of artificial intelligence tools and 12 business planning applications, expanding its use of predictive, generative and agentic AI in enterprise planning.

The new products include Anaplan CoModeler, Custom Analyst and Agent Studio, aimed at customers building and using planning models across finance, supply chain, sales and workforce management. According to Anaplan, the tools combine large language models with its existing planning engine to support calculations, analysis and workflow tasks inside its platform.

Anaplan is also adding 12 pre-built applications for specific business functions. These span finance, supply chain, retail, human resources, sales, marketing and IT, with products focused on areas such as project cost planning, profitability analysis, software spend optimisation, assortment planning and sales forecasting.

The releases reflect a broader push to embed AI into day-to-day planning work rather than treat it as a separate assistant layer. Anaplan's platform has long centred on scenario planning, where businesses test different assumptions and model the impact of decisions before committing resources.

Adam Thier, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Anaplan, outlined the company's view of how AI should be used in business planning.

"The mandate to adopt AI has created a new critical challenge for business decision-making: AI must do more than retrieve answers - it must compute them with precision and confidence," Thier said. "That is why we've architected our platform to be the computational engine that connects every operational choice to its financial outcome. This gives our customers the ability to see the full impact of a decision before they make it, allowing them to respond to market changes faster and capitalise on opportunities others can't see."

Anaplan's approach combines deterministic calculations with machine learning and language-model reasoning. The aim is to address a central concern for large organisations using AI in planning and finance, where outputs need to be traceable and auditable rather than purely conversational.

New tools

CoModeler is aimed at model builders and planners who create and maintain the data structures behind enterprise planning systems. Anaplan said it can help users create, extend and refine planning models more consistently, while Custom Analyst and Agent Studio are designed to let customers build their own AI assistants on top of existing models.

Those assistants can be governed within existing planning frameworks, giving customers a way to query models in natural language and extract insights from their own data. The emphasis on governance suggests Anaplan is targeting large organisations seeking tighter control over how AI is applied to sensitive planning and operational data.

Users at two telecoms groups described the effect on internal planning teams.

"CoModeler feels like an extra set of hands when building complex formulas," said Gary Loveday, planning systems and BI manager at Sky. "It saves our team significant time and helps newer model builders progress faster and more confidently."

Virgin Media O2 also described how it is using the product.

"CoModeler consistently delivers comprehensive implementation plans in minutes for common tasks, surfaces optimization opportunities we might otherwise miss, and produces clear, role‐specific documentation that takes on the heavy lifting so we can focus our time and expertise on higher‐value, more complex build work," said Lucy Crampton, head of planning at Virgin Media O2. "It also proposes alternative approaches to complex solutions, helping us accelerate delivery with greater speed and confidence."

Application push

The 12 applications represent another part of Anaplan's strategy. Rather than asking customers to start with a blank planning model, it is offering packaged products built around common use cases in functions such as finance and supply chain.

Among the finance applications are Project Cost Planning, Profitability Analysis, Subscription Revenue Planning, Consensus Margin Planning and Software Spend Optimisation. In supply chain and retail, the new products include Trade Promotion Management, Spend Analysis and Forecasting, Assortment Planning, and Allocation and Replenishment Planning.

For workforce and commercial teams, Anaplan has added Contact Centre Planning, Project Resource Planning and Sales Forecasting. The company said these products draw on planning patterns developed over years of customer deployments, with the aim of reducing implementation work and giving teams a faster route to operational use.

EJ Tavella, EVP and GM of integrated business applications at Anaplan, said the applications are intended to encode business-specific planning logic into software.

"Our applications are optimised for the age of AI and based on decades of deep functional expertise," Tavella said. "Each application reflects the complex relationships and trade-offs that define how modern businesses operate. By combining domain expertise and AI, we give our customers more than insights - we give them a clear path to making fast, informed, and effective decisions."

Anaplan said more than 2,500 global brands use its platform. It added that major technology groups including AWS, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, OpenAI, ServiceNow and Salesforce use its scenario planning and analysis software for internal decision-making.