Camunda Services GmbH today introduced new artificial intelligence features designed to help companies automate repetitive business tasks.

The capabilities are rolling for the German startup’s namesake process orchestration platform. The software is designed to automate manual, multistep chores that workers carry out in business applications. Retailers can use Camunda to answer common customer questions, while a delivery company could create a workflow that notifies customers when a package is about to arrive.

The platform is built around so-called BPMN diagrams. Those are diagrams that visualize the steps involved in a business task. Each step is represented as a two-dimensional geometric shape, while lines between the shapes represent the order in which steps should be carried out. Camunda users can create a BPMN diagram that describes a business task and then have the platform automate the task. 

The new version of the platform that the company debuted today introduces built-in AI agents. According to Camunda, they can be integrated into the BPMN diagrams that customers use to automate business chores.

An airport operator could embed an AI agent into the workflow it uses to process lost baggage reports. The agent can be configured to request baggage details from passengers, as well as repeat the request if the uploaded information is incomplete. Agents can likewise skip some of a task’s sub-steps or change the order in which they’re carried out.

Usually, companies have to manually program every single action that an automation workflow takes. Camunda says its new AI agents remove that requirement and thereby simplify development.

“With Camunda’s composable architecture, organizations aren’t locked into a single AI or automation technology which often results in broken, disjointed processes that frustrate both customers and employees,” said Chief Technology Officer Daniel Meyer. “Our highly scalable orchestration layer processes real-time data and high transaction volumes.”

Alongside the AI agent support, the new release of the company’s platform that debuted today introduces a number of other enhancements. A new robotic process automation, or RPA, tool will make it easier to create automation workflows that interact with legacy software systems. It’s joined by an AI feature that can automatically extract data from documents and organize it in a structured format.

The enhancements are joined by an AI assistant dubbed Camunda Copilot. According to the company, it automatically generates a BPMN diagram based on natural language instructions. The assistant can also find ways to improve existing BPMN diagrams and generate documentation.

Going forward, Camunda plans to enhance its platform’s ability to perform tasks in systems of record. Those are the applications in which companies keep their most important information. As part of the effort, Camunda is rolling out a connector for SAP SE’s popular enterprise resource planning platform and plans to release integrations with other systems down the road. 

Image: Camunda