In Stay Sharp Episode 133, Aras ACE 2026: Innovation, AI, and Community, co-hosts Juliann Grant and Jonathan Scott are joined by two Razorleaf colleagues, Milan Obradovic, Aras Pre-Sales Architect, and Stephen Binstock, Senior Aras Consultant. All four attended Aras Corporation’s annual customer community event, Aras ACE 2026, a two-day conference bookended by optional tech summit and product training days, and they each share their perspective on what they saw, heard, and experienced at the event.
Big News from ACE
Milan Obradovic, Aras Pre-Sales Architect, Razorleaf
To no one’s surprise, AI was the biggest topic, though Jonathan notes it was more vision than sales pitch. “It was more like, Hey, let me show you a picture of where we’re headed, of where you can use these products that we’re introducing, where you can use these technologies that we’re introducing,” he says. Milan agrees that this year was more about what Aras’ InnovatorEdge can do for you, rather than announcing its release. He also brings up the consistent message Aras promoted, that while they deliver the platform and framework, “the platform is powered by you.” The useful and empowering point is they’re not telling customers how to use the platform, but more “giving you an idea of why we built what we built so you can go do creative stuff with it,” Jonathan adds.
“Meet users where they are” was another phrase the Razorleaf team heard throughout the week. Stephen says, “These task-based apps really are going to drive connecting all aspects of the digital thread beyond the standard Aras client. This is really going to help steer the direction of how users are interacting with PLM into the future.”
Stephen Binstock, Senior Aras Consultant, Razorleaf
New Technology
Milan noted that getting customers excited about InnovatorEdge represented about 90% of the conference’s content. But there was also buzz around Aras expanding the value proposition of their SaaS and cloud offering, including the Aras DevOps studio, which expands how customers can develop on the platform. Another big highlight was support for GovCloud, which adheres to government security requirements.
Jonathan brings up some of the many AI innovations that were discussed, including new concepts like human-to-agent experience (HAX) and agent-to-agent experience (AAX). “These are all things they’re thinking about on the platform,” he says. “It feels like Aras is out there leading the way for us to come along behind and make the solutions based on these new ideas.” Juliann brings up interesting digital thread innovations, noting, “They’ve been talking about digital thread and using the platform to connect the digital thread for a long time, but this year they actually have some of the tools in place with InnovatorEdge and some of these AI capabilities tests to really bring people to that next step.”
Event Highlights
One standout session for everyone was Aras CEO Leon Lauritsen’s keynote, which made Milan excited to be around the Aras community. “He set the tone for the event,” Milan says. “It wasn’t ‘same-old’ anymore. We’re back to the market disruption and we’re the punk rock guys and we’re going to get in the way of all the big players—which was super fun to see. And then it was immediately, look at all this cool stuff we have.”
Another highlight was the session from Cuebric’s CEO Pinard Demirdag about thriving in an AI-driven world. Steven explains her different take, “One of the takeaways I had was that AI is ultimately still a tool in our collective tool belts. We can do amazing things with AI largely due to the innate human characteristics that we are able to ingest into the context of AI. Meaning AI is still a machine. It’s really good at math, it’s really good at being able to work with algorithms and formulas, but it can’t do some of that critical analysis and put itself into the knowledge that humans accumulate through the business challenges that they’re trying to solve with AI.”
Juliann and Jonathan’s favorite session was Aras in the Round, a unique Q&A forum hosted by Leon Lauritsen and Rob McAveney, where the duo literally sit in the center of a circle of attendees and field any and every question thrown at them. Jonathan says, “They get tough questions, they get pointed things, they get where are we headed? What about this? And it’s not all tech either, but I love that. I love just the authentic nature of you are talking to the people leading the company and you’re getting live on the fly answers.” Juliann adds, “It feels so authentic and so real, and it makes it feel like a community at the event.”
Learn More About Aras ACE 2026
The full podcast contains more discussion and details on a variety of topics, including what Aras’s new non-GUI user experiences can contribute to your use of the platform, why the Razorleaf customer dinner is such a highlight for everyone, how you can get involved in Aras community events around the world, and more.
Be sure to check out Stay Sharp Episode 133: Aras ACE 2026: Innovation, AI, and Community, and join us each week for a new podcast.
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