Introducing RELEX Open: Building and buying in the age of AI

Oct 28, 2026 • 5 min

Deploy what’s proven. Extend what’s next. Orchestrate what you have

AI is profoundly changing how enterprise software works, what it can do, and who builds it. This transition has reframed the build vs buy question for IT executives in manufacturing and retail, altering the calculus for technological transformation.

But building and buying don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, at RELEX, we believe the most sensible approach for the age of AI is a mix of the two. Success with that mix rests on a common data foundation, in-built domain expertise, and the flexibility to develop custom capabilities. That’s why we’ve expanded the platform to RELEX Open, enabling retailers and manufacturers to build and buy solutions as and when needed.

RELEX Open: Three ways forward with AI transformation

RELEX Open is built for what comes next, while also addressing today’s challenges. Retailers and manufacturers are given the reins to chart their own course with AI. They can deploy extensively validated solutions, all highly configurable and ready to go. But, if they wish, they can do so much more. With the platform, organizations can build new tools on proven foundations beyond RELEX’s core capabilities and orchestrate existing systems to make context-aware, explainable decisions.

	Deploy	Extend	Orchestrate
What it offers	A suite of purpose-built solutions validated by 600+ customers at enterprise scale.	The freedom to develop and integrate custom capabilities on proven data foundations, encoded intelligence, and robust infrastructure via the plugin framework.	The ability to connect your systems and agents into a single source of truth and orchestrate decisions from a shared ontology (the business context and meaning underpinning an operation).
What it’s ideal for	Quick time to value, with minimal risk.	Solving operational problems that cannot be addressed by an off-the-shelf solution.	Scaling and coordinating AI across disconnected systems without replacing existing technology, new or legacy.
What it looks like for retail	Unified forecasting and replenishment, and merchandising, all powered by proprietary AI models.	A plugin built by specialists within weeks for an apparel retailer that forecasts returns in transit, then reconciles them with actual returns as they arrive. This new forecast informs stock balancing decisions and feeds into supplier order proposals.	An agentic operating system orchestrates agents through a shared ontology of a retail business to understand how time-sensitive supplier incentives impact availability.
What it looks like for manufacturing	End-to-end supply and demand planning for strategic and operational decision-making using the same data model.	The development of operation-specific ordering logic that redirects long-lead-time CMO orders in response to sudden shifts in demand.	Orchestrating decisions between RELEX supply chain planning and a separate logistics platform, while retrieving insights from email and Teams to guide workflows.

RELEX Open is highly flexible and non-linear. Manufacturing and retail organizations are not confined to one path or forced to follow them in a set order. They start wherever fits best and can then turn onto another path when the time is right.

Each way forward is paved on the same proven RELEX platform, developed over 20 years, and shaped by the learnings and lessons from half a billion encoded decisions made by hundreds of customers.

A peek inside RELEX Open

RELEX Open gives retailers and manufacturers three ways to work with the platform. Each one includes a suite of tools backed by strong data modelling, robust infrastructure, and comprehensive governance frameworks.

What can be deployed right now?

Whether it’s for manufacturing, store operations, merchandising, or supply chain management, the RELEX platform can make a tangible difference to growth and the bottom line.

Commercial, planning and operational capabilities across demand, production planning, promotions, replenishment, merchandising, and operations.
UI-based configurability for workflows, business rules, and constraints according to how an organization works, without needing developers.
Specialized AI, including machine learning, heuristics, and optimizations, for accurate and high-performance calculations.
Purpose-built agents, enriched by a wealth of encoded intelligence and documented best practices, automate decision-making and manage key workflows.
A ready-made operational data model with defined products, suppliers, and locations to constraints, calendars, and promotion overlays.
An in-memory engine, with processing power that extends far beyond what’s possible with cloud-only systems.
Flexible integrations for external systems through APIs and packaged connectors.
Rebot’s prompt-based problem-solving offers an intuitive UX and conversational interface.

How does extending RELEX work?

An organization may want to do more than deploy existing solutions. RELEX Open unlocks that potential, providing a proven foundation for building new business-specific capabilities to extend beyond the core platform.

The RELEX plugin framework enables the development of new data models, workflow actions, and UI blocks.
Conversational prompt-based authoring with Rebot gives domain experts an simple way to rapidly build, test, iterate, and deploy plugins without coding.
New plugins are subjected to full dependency validations to prevent a broken environment and can be added or updated while the system is running.
Apply business-specific rules, parameters, and workflows to new capabilities on RELEX infrastructure.
The existing operational model used to deploy RELEX solutions can also be leveraged by new capabilities.
The same powerful in-memory engine running RELEX capabilities also support building and scaling new capabilities.
Widen agent competencies with new custom skills built on RELEX Open.
Connect third-party systems and unstructured data for further extensibility.

What makes orchestrating systems and agents possible?

Fragmented systems and siloed data that lead to misaligned plans are age-old problems for manufacturing and retail enterprises. Systems and agents can only make a measurable impact if they all work from the same version of the truth. That’s why RELEX Open connects them around a shared business context, so they use the same language when making decisions and taking action.

The RELEX Agentic Operating System will interact with external systems, orchestrate agents and applications, and utilize RELEX’s specialized tools for computationally demanding tasks.
An ontology of the business context ensures every connected agent reasons against the same goals, metrics and drivers. This ensures recommendations and decisions are always trustworthy.
A decision surfacing tool that will resolve agent conflicts, enforce human-in-the-loop approvals, and log activity for auditing and traceability. This tool keeps the reasoning behind recommendations and agent decisions explainable.
Open protocols — including an API gateway, agent to agent (A2A) protocols, a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, and an event bus— connects external systems and existing agents to RELEX Open.
Broad interoperability with frontier AI, third-party agents, ERP systems, market data streams, and supplier platforms.

What security infrastructure comes with RELEX Open?

Everything deployed or built on RELEX Open, and every connection made to it, gets the same standard of security and protection, minimizing risk as the transformation advances.

Managed access controls that identify and label each connection, enforce decision policy and criteria, and log every action so they are traceable.
Human-in-the-loop approval processes and exception-based logic.
Auth0 controls agent access to data and determines how they can use it.
The RELEX platform is SOC 2 type II certified.
EU AI Act compliant in relation to explainability, traceability, and human oversight control.

No matter what path is taken, it’s worth doing so with a trusted partner. We’ve earned that trust with more than 700 customers and an NPS consistently above 60. That’s a track record any organization can build on.

Of course, the starting point for your organization depends on the challenges you need to solve and the technology you already have in place. Your needs may be met with ready-made solutions to quickly add value and generate ROI within months. Or you might have an in-house team with an appetite to build.

Either way, it’s worth speaking with a RELEX platform expert to understand how RELEX Open can work for your business.

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Written by

Ulla Huopaniemi

Lead Product Marketing Manager, CPG/Manufacturing

Ulla Huopaniemi is the Lead Product Marketing Manager at RELEX Solutions, specializing in supply chain planning for consumer packaged goods and manufacturing companies. She has over 20 years of experience in B2B product marketing and product management across international markets.