How ‘smart’ is process intelligence?

Process intelligence is a topic of hot debate. This emerging branch of process management offers rich possibilities for businesses seeking to drive innovation and efficiency.

However, just how ‘smart’ is process intelligence? What does it offer that other, more traditional process excellence concepts such as process mining or business process management (BPM) do not?

Let’s explore what makes process intelligence truly ‘intelligent’ – and how.

What is process intelligence?

Process intelligence is data that has been systematically collected to analyze individual steps of business processes. It is an evolving component of process discovery – turning raw process data into a continuous flow of accurate, unbiased process insights to pinpoint inefficiencies and bottlenecks. 

Historically, process improvement has relied on past data, expert insights and retrospective analysis. With process intelligence, businesses access real-time data and predictive analytics, allowing them to make more informed decisions. This helps to support and enhance operational excellence (OPEX) and business transformation in more innovative ways.

“Process intelligence deals with the degree to which we can have actionable insights into the execution of business processes and the subsequent follow on activities to improve them,” says Caspar Jans, process expert, director Celonis process management.

It brings to life the Lean process optimization framework of Plan-Do-Check-Act and/or the Six Sigma Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) strategy through the integration of process discovery, modeling and governance technologies, says Steve Ponting, regional director at ARIS.

“These are notably BPM and process mining software, but can include additional capabilities such as process governance, risk and controls management and process simulation. Previously these elements were often discrete, isolated capabilities owned by different and disparate functions within the organization.”

Process simulation, in particular, allows organizations to realistically replicate and dynamically analyze business processes, Ponting adds. “This enables the identification of process weaknesses, bottlenecks and the evaluation of different process variants to determine the most effective strategies before implementing costly changes.”

Watch Madison Lundquist, principal research lead, process and performance management at APQC, discuss the state of process strategy

A process excellence enabler

Process intelligence is considered a key enabler of various aspects of modern process excellence.

For example, many consider it to be integral to successful adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Process intelligence insights not only inform and improve the development and use of AI but also support its continuous monitoring and optimization of end-to-end processes.

“A phrase heard more often nowadays is that there is ‘no AI with PI’ and what is meant by that is that if you want to leverage the potential power of AI, you need to feed it contextual information and this, for a typical organization, comes in the form of process intelligence,” says Jans. 

In a recent Celonis survey, 89 percent of business leaders said that AI without process intelligence fails to deliver expected results. Meanwhile, 58 percent raised concerns that process shortcomings may limit AI’s contribution to their business.

Process intelligence can also greatly enhance intelligent document processing (IDP) says Jon Knisley, process AI lead at ABBYY. “IDP is powerful, but if your processes are disorganized or inefficient, IDP can magnify these problems rather than solve them.” Deploying IDP without first optimizing workflows with process intelligence could lead to inefficiencies rather than improvements, he adds.

Process intelligence can enhance IDP through detailed process discovery, optimization and monitoring. “By prioritizing process optimization, organizations eliminate inefficiencies, mitigate risks and set clear performance standards. Streamlined workflows combined with IDP create scalable systems that improve decision-making, enhance productivity and deliver cost savings,” Knisley says.

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Process intelligence can improve business transformation strategies too. In the PEX Report 2025 – PEX Network’s flagship industry research report – more than a quarter (27 percent) of surveyed business leaders said they use process intelligence as a key component of their business analytics strategy. Meanwhile, 12 percent of organizations implement it to support OPEX and business transformation, with 16 percent planning to increase investment in process intelligence in the near future.

By supporting a culture of continuous process improvement and monitoring the impact of process optimization, process improvements can be adjusted in response to real-world outcomes on a continual basis. Process intelligence also connects new technologies to the business, and vice versa, helping to overcome some of the key challenges of digital transformation initiatives and supporting true organizationl change. 

Process intelligence is just getting started

While the capabilities of process intelligence are highly compelling, Jans argues that the ‘intelligence’ component of the concept is only just beginning to take shape. “The potential is there – but we’re just getting started as an industry,” he says.

“The most promising development of the last couple of years around this topic is the move from case-centric to object-centric process mining as it delivers the required capability to analyze across different processes and functional domains, providing higher quality analyses that are needed to make intelligent decisions.”

Watch Wil van der Aalst discuss object-centric process mining

The most cutting-edge process intelligence platform out there is capable of reading the execution of supply chain processes, analyzing them and proactively coming up with suggestions of stock transfers between locations to increase the on-time, in-full deliveries, Jans says. What’s more, it can even analyze the execution of business processes and make recommendations on production decisions based on changes to tariffs, he adds.

“I would say there are exciting times ahead, but as with all intelligence topics, the quality of the data that goes in, determines the quality of the data coming out,” Jans concludes.

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