AI for Industrial and MRO Distributors (2026): What It Does and Who Sells It

AI for an industrial or MRO distributor answers quote requests while the customer’s machine is still down, turns emailed parts lists and competitor part numbers into ERP orders, and follows up with suppliers on open POs until the date is confirmed. In 2026 quote and order entry are the most proven uses; supplier follow-up is newer and has fewer named customers. Pick by the queue that costs you the most.

Morsa publishes this guide and appears in it. Every vendor and association fact was read on the vendor’s or association’s own site, or the trade press, on 12 October 2026, and vendor-reported numbers are labeled as theirs.

Quick answer

• Quote and order entry from email and parts lists: Proton.ai, Augment and Canals; Proton names MSC, ORS Nasco and R.S. Hughes.

• Inbound quote queues answered by agents: InstaLILY, which builds agents per distributor.

• Open-PO follow-up with suppliers: Didero and Augment; Didero publishes an industrial distributor case on Epicor.

• Morsa: built and proven in manufacturing, now onboarding its first distributors; it chases the open PO in the team’s own channels and closes on the goods receipt.

What does AI actually do for an industrial or MRO distributor’s daily work?

It works the two queues that never empty: inbound requests and open purchase orders. A maintenance manager emails a parts list from the plant floor, or writes “the thing we ordered last March.” Proton.ai says it maps vague descriptions and competitor part numbers to your SKUs, applies contract pricing, and posts the approved quote to the ERP. Its own figure is “15 minutes to under 60 seconds per quote.”

Speed matters most on break-fix work. A chief commercial officer at a national industrial automation distributor told InstaLILY: “If you respond within an hour, your probability of getting the business is higher.” His team’s median response had been three to four hours.

The buying side is the second queue. Didero’s Echelon case shows the routine: first supplier outreach at 48 hours, then every 24 hours, with the buyer pulled in only when attempts run out. An acknowledgment counts only with “a confirmed delivery date, ship date, and PO match.”

AI should not price outside contract terms, approve substitutions on safety items, or extend credit on its own.

What is eating the inside sales and purchasing team’s day?

Rekeying and chasing, at volumes that grow faster than headcount. NAW’s 2026 AI Adoption Index, built with Infor from 302 responses, found back-office efficiency was the strongest impact area: 47.4% of those assessing impact reported a moderate or significant effect. Modern Distribution Management lists the inputs behind it: “Purchase-order emails, PDF spec sheets, faxes, remittance documents, vendor confirmations, credit memos.”

Headcount is not where it shows up yet: 76.3% of those who answered the workforce question reported no change from AI. MDM’s suggested measures are the ones an MRO desk already feels: orders processed per employee, quote-response speed and error rates. Bart Tessel, NAW’s Chief Innovation Officer, described the mood at the September Innovators Summit: “Leaders are moving beyond demonstrations and asking tougher questions about margin, working capital, customer value, governance and adoption.”

Which AI vendors serve industrial and MRO distributors?

These six show industrial or MRO work on their own sites. Fields are identical, and Morsa is last because it has no distributor customer yet. Proton.ai names industrial customers with quotes on its homepage (MSC, Vallen, ORS Nasco, R.S. Hughes). InstaLILY sells custom agents; the industrial customer in its quoting case is unnamed. Didero and Augment both chase suppliers on open POs, which is the job Morsa does. Canals lists Industrial/MRO among its verticals, though the pages read did not name an MRO customer. Every price here is quote only except Augment’s per-unit model and Morsa’s share of measured value. The proof column is each vendor’s own claim, chosen by the vendor; the cleanest test is a reference call with a distributor that runs the same ERP and a similar order volume to yours.

Proton.ai

• Best for: Inside sales at large industrial and MRO houses

• What it automates: Quote and order entry, AI CRM, product data, ecommerce recommendations

• ERPs it lists: Epicor Prophet 21, Epicor Eclipse, Infor SX.e, SAP S/4HANA and ECC, NetSuite, IBM AS/400, “20+ others”

• Pricing: Quote only (no public price)

• Published industrial/MRO proof: MSC CEO: “a 3x profit return for every dollar spent” (Proton)

• Distribution customers: MSC, Vallen, ORS Nasco, R.S. Hughes, BPI, Benco Dental

InstaLILY

• Best for: Custom agents built per distributor, enterprise scale

• What it automates: Inbound quotes, inventory checks, routing, follow-ups

• ERPs it lists: SAP, NetSuite, Epicor, Salesforce, HubSpot, Snowflake

• Pricing: Quote only (no public price)

• Published industrial/MRO proof: Unnamed automation distributor: 6,000+ emails answered, about 1,500 quotes in month one (InstaLILY)

• Distribution customers: Radwell, Harrington, Parts Town, SRS Distribution, United Rentals (logos)

Didero

• Best for: Open-PO follow-up and procurement work on the ERP

• What it automates: Supplier communication, PO tracking, documents, approvals, AP

• ERPs it lists: SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, Dynamics 365, Epicor, Infor, Acumatica, Odoo (logos)

• Pricing: Quote only (no public price)

• Published industrial/MRO proof: Echelon Supply & Service: “Over 1,100 POs automated per month” on Epicor (Didero)

• Distribution customers: Echelon Supply & Service; “100+ mid-market and enterprise deployments”

Augment (Augie)

• Best for: Quotes plus supplier chasing

• What it automates: RFQs and POs to quotes and orders; past-due PO chasing; inbound freight

• ERPs it lists: Oracle, SAP, Epicor Eclipse, Epicor Prophet 21, Infor

• Pricing: Per completed unit of work; no public rate card

• Published industrial/MRO proof: Brooks Safety Solutions and Insco on its distribution page

• Distribution customers: Ewing Outdoor Supply, Insco, Brooks Safety Solutions, Reece, Johnstone Supply

Canals

• Best for: Order entry, AP and PO tracking

• What it automates: Quotes and orders from any format, AP, cash application, PO-to-receipt tracking

• ERPs it lists: Epicor Eclipse, Epicor Prophet 21, Infor CSD, Infor SX.e, Acumatica, Dynamics 365, NetSuite, SAP S/4HANA

• Pricing: Quote only (no public price)

• Published industrial/MRO proof: Industrial/MRO listed as a vertical; no named MRO customer on pages read

• Distribution customers: “100+ distributors”; Turtle, The Kendall Group

Morsa

• Best for: Supplier and PO follow-up across the channels the team already uses (email, chat, phone and others)

• What it automates: Chases suppliers on open POs, moves dates with who and why, escalates before the customer’s need date

• ERPs it lists: SAP Business One, Dynamics 365 (incl. Business Central), NetSuite, Odoo, Zoho, QuickBooks and others; P21, Eclipse and SX.e by API, database, export or email trail

• Pricing: Pilot first; then a share of measured value; no public price

• Published industrial/MRO proof: None yet

• Distribution customers: None yet (manufacturing live)

Which ERPs do industrial and MRO distributors run, and how does AI connect?

Epicor Prophet 21 is the name that recurs. Epicor calls it “the only ERP designed by distributors for distributors,” says “5 of the top 10 fluid power distributors use Epicor,” and quotes All Fasteners’ president that P21 “is great for VMI and MRO.” Didero’s Echelon case runs on Epicor. Proton’s list adds Infor SX.e and IBM AS/400.

Prophet 21, Eclipse, SX.e and AS/400 are not on Morsa’s published integration list. It connects the way it connects any system: an API, the database, a scheduled export of open POs, or the email trail of supplier acknowledgments in the buyers’ inboxes. Augment says supplier follow-up can start from “a recurring file of open POs” without a full integration, which is the same idea. Morsa’s listed integrations include SAP Business One, SAP Ariba, Microsoft Dynamics 365 including Business Central, Oracle NetSuite, Odoo, Zoho, QuickBooks, Excel, Google Sheets, Gmail, Outlook, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp and phone calls.

Where does Morsa fit for an industrial or MRO distributor?

Morsa is built and proven in manufacturing, now onboarding our first distributors. It runs the open-PO queue behind the counter.

An illustration, not a customer result: a customer’s gearbox replacement is on backorder, promised Thursday. The supplier emails a buyer that it now ships next Tuesday. Morsa reads the email, links it to the open sales order and the customer waiting with a line down, tells the inside rep and buyer in the channel they use, asks the supplier for a firm date or a partial, escalates to the branch manager before Thursday, and closes only when the goods receipt posts.

The manufacturing proof: at JRG Automotive, Morsa identified 5 of 8 production-stopping material shortages early enough to act, and the plant saved $2 million (pricing page). At J4S, on-time completion of commitments went from about 30% to about 75% in four weeks.

When Morsa is the wrong choice: your bottleneck is quote and order entry (start with Proton, Augment or Canals), you want a vendor with an industrial distributor reference now (Didero, Proton), or you need a native P21 connector before any pilot.

What should you ask any AI vendor before you sign?

1. Which industrial or MRO distributors run this today, at my order volume?

2. How does it handle competitor part numbers and “the same as last time”?

3. On open POs, what counts as a confirmation: a reply, or a date plus PO match?

4. How fast does it answer a break-fix request, measured, not promised?

5. Does it write back to my P21, Eclipse, SX.e or AS/400, and who approves?

6. Can I start from email and an open-PO export before a full integration?

7. What is the price after the pilot: per user, per unit, or per outcome?

For the wider picture, read AI for distributors, the best AI agents for distributors in 2026 and how to stop chasing suppliers for delivery dates. Book a demo: https://cal.com/morsa

Sources

1. Modern Distribution Management, Mike Hockett, Research: Distribution AI’s First Workforce Impact Is Capacity, Not Cuts, 5 October 2026, read 12 October 2026, mdm.com

2. Modern Distribution Management, Mike Hockett, At NAW Innovators Summit, Distribution’s AI Conversation Shifts to Business Value, 22 September 2026, read 12 October 2026, mdm.com

3. NAW, Research: AI Adoption Index Report, read 12 October 2026, naw.org

4. Distribution Strategy Group, The AI Divide: DSG’s AI Top 25, 14 July 2026, read 12 October 2026, distributionstrategy.com

5. Proton.ai, homepage and Order & Quote Entry, read 12 October 2026, proton.ai/order-and-quote-entry

6. InstaLILY, homepage and Quoting Speed case study, read 12 October 2026, instalily.ai/case-studies/quoting-speed

7. Didero, homepage and Echelon Supply & Service case study, read 12 October 2026, didero.ai/case-studies/echelon-supply-and-service

8. Augment, AI Agent for Wholesale Distribution and pricing, read 12 October 2026, goaugment.com/b2b-distribution

9. Canals, homepage and integrations, read 12 October 2026, canals.ai

10. Epicor, Prophet 21, Fluid Power Distribution and Supply Chain Management, read 12 October 2026, epicor.com

11. Morsa, Pricing (JRG Automotive) and J4S customer story, read 12 October 2026, /pricing

Changelog

• 12 October 2026: first published, with NAW AI Adoption Index figures via MDM, a six-vendor table checked on each vendor’s site, and the JRG Automotive shortage result.