Our Process Intelligence platform identifies where and why bottlenecks and risks arise in processes, revealing improvement opportunities. It generates process insights that form the foundation for decision-making – without these insights, improvements and value creation is not possible.
If any of these factors is missing, the value at the end will be zero. Actions can be categorised into three areas: people, processes, and technology. Processes can be enhanced by training people to work more efficiently, by changing the process itself, or by making it run more smoothly.
In the first part of this two-part series to celebrate the launch of Beyond, the Celonis Labs journal, we looked at the impact of AI and how it might dictate our future. Part Two looks at the impact technology could potentially have on our future.
One of the best in future gazing is our own Lead Evangelist Rudy Kuhn.
As Rudy says in the Journal: “Technology plays a prominent role in increasing efficiency and minimising risk. Humans have always used technology to improve work. Automation allowed work to be decoupled from human labour and made it scalable. Yet, despite the strength and precision of machines, they are inherently “dumb” because intelligence, and the ability to make intelligent decisions, has historically been exclusive to humans. But this is changing with AI turning this human ability into a technological skill. Since ChatGPT became available, we’ve seen how AI can generate content based on extensive training data. However, when it comes to company-specific processes, AI cannot provide answers if it doesn’t have access to relevant information.”
But, as Rudy outlines, what if we train an internal AI with business-relevant material from Process Intelligence? It would then understand the company’s processes. It would understand the unique business context within which the company operates. It would understand what makes something “good” or “bad” for the company.
Once fed with this knowledge, AI can assist us in making informed decisions. This would decouple “intelligence” from humans, making it scalable – much like automation decoupled physical labour from workers and made it scalable.
What does this development mean for businesses? Based on today’s capabilities the notion of an autonomous enterprise is more of a vision.
Rudy says to better understand the challenges, it’s worth looking at autonomous driving, as an example.
Automation in cars has become commonplace for decades. Drivers in today’s cars are supported by automation everywhere – wipers, cruise control, self-dimming headlights, and more. However, cars are far from autonomous. So, what is needed to make a vehicle truly autonomous?
It requires a suite of sensors to constantly know its location and what’s happening around it. It also needs road maps, traffic rules, and the intelligent ability to make split-second decisions. Finally, this central intelligence must have access to all operational systems such as steering and braking. When we apply this principle to the enterprise, we see similar requirements: situational awareness of the current state of processes, enabled by Process Intelligence.
Rules and target processes are defined by Process Management, while AI analyses this information, identifies deviations, suggests actions, and – once a decision is made – can initiate these actions.
For implementation, Process Automation and Orchestration are used to control operational systems such as ERP and CRM. However, the central and most critical element remains decisions. Studies show that humans can consider a maximum of five to nine facts when making decisions. Too many facts overwhelm us and lead to cognitive overload. Complexity and stress further limit our abilities.
Experience, however, can enhance our capacity to process more information, as experts can better recognise patterns and distinguish between relevant and irrelevant details. Since AI excels at recognising patterns and can easily process more than just nine facts simultaneously, it can greatly assist us in making decisions. So, it’s about Hybrid Intelligence – the combination of human and technological intelligence. And because this is fundamentally about decisions, we refer to it as Decision Intelligence, which will revolutionise how decisions are made.
Given all these possibilities, says Rudy, we can confidently say that the future will be more intelligent because more intelligent decisions will be made. “This won’t be an abrupt transformation. Instead, we will witness gradual progress across all areas of life. In businesses, AI will support people at every level of their work and, most importantly, help them make better, more intelligent decisions – as long as we can provide AI with the right and necessary information to do so.”
Discover the latest insights, innovations and expert perspectives from Celonis and leading process professionals and researchers as they explore how Process Intelligence is driving AI and creating a world where processes work. Download the Beyond Journal here.
If you missed the first instalment, Process Intelligence fuelling Enterprise AI, see here.
Pascal Coubard is VP Sales APAC at Celonis, the world’s leader in process mining and process intelligence.
