Why AI is making workflow automation stylish
Due to synthetic intelligence (AI) and an trade normal from 2006, the Object Administration Group’s Enterprise Course of Mannequin and Notation (BPMN) workflow automation seems set for a renaissance. Some 20 years on, BPMN is getting used alongside agentic AI to ship what the trade sees as adaptive course of automation.
This was a sizzling subject on the CamundaCon 2026 convention in Amsterdam. Throughout his presentation, Forrester principal analyst Bernhard Schaffrik confirmed a five-step evolution from primary scripting for workflow to a totally autonomous organisation. “Autonomy is simply attainable when you straight relate [the workflow] to what’s happening in actual time, and your approval course of is ideally autonomous,” he mentioned.
Chatting with Pc Weekly about his expertise of how workflow automation has advanced, James Fernandez, co-CEO of Fairlink, mentioned: “I bear in mind, and I used to be performing some stuff in logistics, which lends itself to course of mapping.”
However, he remembers, the workflow instruments of the time had been primary mapping instruments. “You might run fashions, however you couldn’t do something extra. As a 20-year-old, I used to be completely blown away that no one was doing this correctly,” he mentioned.
Fairlink was established to sort out the exploitation of immigrant employees. It goals to supply transparency in recruitment and all through the employment journey utilizing three built-in platforms that work collectively to make recruitment safer and extra accountable at each stage of the method.
It has labored with IT consulting agency Casci to develop these platforms, which offer governance and guardrails to attach jobseekers with employers, to scale back the chance of the employees being exploited.
Discussing the workflow engine required by Fairlink, Fernandez mentioned: “For one of many first occasions in my profession, I’ve only a few folks versus 1000’s of individuals within the enterprise. I’ve a small organisation, and we’re targeted on the enterprise downside we’ve to resolve.”
This frames the dialog Fairlink has across the software program it wants for workflow orchestration and using AI, in addition to if and when agentic AI needs to be used. “Having the mix of the suitable instruments and the suitable people is admittedly necessary for us as a result of we’re coping with people, and we’re coping with susceptible people who don’t know in regards to the journey they’re happening,” he added.
In a demo at CamundaCon 2026, Casci and Fairlink confirmed how a migrant employee interacts straight with the system utilizing WhatsApp and Instagram. “You probably have ever seen migrant employees use WhatsApp, they gained’t be texting. They’ll all be utilizing voice notes,” mentioned Fernandez.
In consequence, he mentioned the back-end system sends WhatsApp voice notes to employees speaking with Fairlink by way of Twilio. The demo confirmed a voice notice dialog in Hindi, which was getting used to generate a CV for the employee. All of the coordination between the immigrant employee and the employer is dealt with by way of the Camunda workflow orchestration platform.
Fashionable workflow automation
Toby Cook dinner, founder and chief know-how officer at Casci, who beforehand labored at Deloitte’s public sector consulting observe, mentioned the Fairlink software program works in actual time. “We’re in a position to translate Hindi in actual time and reply in a voice notice, enabling somebody to successfully have a dialog with Fairlink,” he mentioned.
Behind the scenes, the software program permits Fairlink to construct the data required for that particular person.
Concerning workflow orchestration in fashionable enterprises, Cook dinner noticed that organisations not have to pressure unwieldy monolithic programs into configurations that turn out to be almost unimaginable to assist. The rise of the microservice-based structure lends itself to a much more light-weight, horizontally scalable enterprise system that was not attainable earlier than.
“We’re in a world the place programs are much more malleable, and you may externalise orchestration and usher in workflows, which is admittedly driving the expertise from a person perspective,” he mentioned. This orchestration of workflows makes it attainable to connect with and replace a number of programs of report.
Fernandez believes the performance accessible in a contemporary enterprise workflow engine is profound. “After 30-something years of getting tried to do enterprise workflow, there’s convergence now, and I can discuss in enterprise language and convey collectively all aspects of an organisation,” he mentioned.
