I agree with you.

I used to work in green screen text based UIs from the 80s (TUI).

Power users didn't need search or anything else - they memorized the keystrokes to navigate the text UI and could just type key combinations to blaze through the UI faster than it could render on the screen.

I've never really seen anyone able to replicate that UI in a browser based or GUI desktop app to be honest.

Power users are a different use case, although the end goal is to remove the need for clicks.

I don't believe chatbots/AI assistants are a panacea, definitely encourage the architects of this new ERP platform to weigh the pros and cons.

That said, two jobs back I worked for a major manufacturing company that used the old GUI destop based Oracle EBS ERP. To automate repetitive workflows they were trying to implement UIPath (RPA automation - it drives the UI for the user) on top of the GUI.

This is what lead me to believe that if the ERP application's functionality is discoverable by an AI assistant, it can be used to automate or navigate on behalf of the user, or as part of complex workflows.

That can be done later after the basics are addressed - my only advice would be to just consider it sooner, even if you don't build it first.

It's a little easier to think of how one might simplify the workflows and design for automation into the core of the product, via the UI, APIs, etc earlier than later.

But in general - focus on the user's needs first and different roles/personas - just don't completely ignore new types of automation workflow opportunities (i.e. AI assistants/chatbots).

My opinion only.