Celonis SE is extending its namesake software platform with new features that promise to help companies operate more efficiently.

The German startup, which is backed by more than $1.7 billion in funding, announced the enhancements today at its Celonis:Next event.

A sizable portion of the work that a company’s employees perform follows standardized procedures. Celonis’ namesake platform can collect data about those business processes, measure their efficiency and find areas for improvement. The software is used by more than 1,400 organizations worldwide.

As part of today’s update, Celonis introduced a new version of its platform’s Process Intelligence API. The feature makes the data that Celonis collects about a company’s business processes available to artificial intelligence services. Those services, in turn, can use the data for tasks such as finding opportunities to boost efficiency. According to Celonis, the new version of the API includes a relatively simple interface that allows developers to quickly configure what data should be made available to which AI application.

In conjunction with the API update, the company detailed that it has integrated a tool called Emporix Orchestration Engine into its platform. The tool was originally developed last year by a German tech firm called Emporix. It uses the data that Celonis collects about its customers’ internal processes to automate repetitive business tasks. Celonis acquired Orchestration Engine from Emporix as part of the product integration initiative. 

Two other features, Annotation Builder and Process Copilots, were moved into general availability today as part of the platform update.

Annotation Builder makes unstructured datasets easier to navigate by adding descriptive tags. A company could, for example, add an “e-commerce purchase” tag to every transaction log that describes a purchase made through its online store. Process Copilots, in turn, are chatbots that help workers find business information using natural language prompts. That removes the need to manually sift through internal data repositories.

Celonis is rolling out the enhancements alongside four so-called Solution Suites. Those are feature bundles geared towards specific use cases that include integrations with external services, prepackaged automation workflows and other components. The Solution Suites are geared toward supply chain, finance, front office and sustainability professionals. 

“Orchestration Engine enables stronger oversight and control of process workflows,” said Celonis Chief Product Officer Dan Brown. “And Solution Suites shorten time to value by making it faster and easier to deploy PI and AI across the enterprise.”

The company also introduced several other improvements to its platform at Celonis:Next. Some of the new features will make it easier for customers to move business data into the software. Additionally, Celonis has revamped its PQL Editor, a tool that allows users to run analyses on business process data to identify ways of increasing their company’s operational efficiency. 

Image: Celonis