How Celonis is revolutionizing process intelligence

Organizations face mounting challenges in aligning their processes with digital transformation goals. Celonis, a leader in process intelligence, is at the forefront of helping businesses navigate this complexity. Celonis enables companies to harness data, optimize workflows and drive efficiency at scale.

At OPEX Week 2025, Celonis championined the convergence of process mining and process management to unlock new levels of operational excellence (OPEX). In this interview, a representative from Celonis’ product marketing team discusses the company’s mission at the event, the latest trends in business process management (BPM) and the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping the future of operations.

From the challenges organizations face in adapting to rapid change to the potential of generative AI in predictive analytics, this conversation offers insights into how businesses can stay ahead in an era of digital disruption.

PEX Network: What brings Celonis to OPEX Week and what are your goals for the event?

Celonis: We are keen to drive more awareness of the importance of the union between the valuable disciplines of process mining and process management as a way to help organizations realize their transformation goals. Our process intelligence platform integrates the relevant data streams for process management and process mining to form an elevated and valuable data foundation to rationalize and drive OPEX and transformation efforts.

PEX Network: What trends or insights are you particularly interested in taking away from this year’s sessions?

Celonis: We are keen to know what change management experts think about AI and rapidly changing technology and how they think it will effectively impact their ability to manage their processes. It’s also interesting to understand the nitty gritty of transformation efforts through some of the sessions. Although AI is a big trend in automation, it’s kind of nice to see how people are still very much central to the discussion.

PEX Network: What challenges do organizations face in aligning their BPM initiatives with digital transformation goals and how can Celonis help?

Celonis: The biggest challenge is kind of like a three headed monster. Companies struggle with a persistent misalignment of people, processes and technology. That’s the first head.

The second is the sheer amount of disruption that is happening as a result of external forces like technology disruption, new compliance initiatives, the climate crisis, geopolitics and more.

The third is the fact that the pace of change has grown exponentially. A few decades ago, it was a set it and forget it kind of world. Change happened slowly and could be measured in months, or years, and processes evolved more slowly. Today it’s different. Ever since about 2006, when big data, the web and the cloud formed a tipping point, change now happens in minutes or seconds. It’s a new game, especially on the doorstep of such a macro disruption like AI, which will have the same impact on society as electricity had. It's big.

Companies really need to have better organizational self-awareness, be able to absorb and execute and to manage change at scale if they want to thrive in this new normal. This is where Celonis can help with process intelligence.

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PEX Network: What advice would you give to companies looking to leverage BPM to streamline their processes?

Celonis: Companies really need to think about the data because of the sheer pace of change. Any change in an organization is kind of like a pit stop in a Formula 1 (F1) race. If your pitstop takes a month, you lose an edge and you can blame a lack of data, skills and tools in your pit stop process for not winning your race. Modern F1 pit stops happen in under two seconds and this is a very tightly monitored and data infused process today that makes sure you get back on the track without losing your place in the race.

Data is the big differentiator between companies that will struggle to adapt and those that will thrive. This is where our process intelligence digital twin can really come in to help. It can be the engine to drive process transformation in times of rapid change.

PEX Network: How does AI elevate Celonis’ process mining platform?

Celonis: I’d start by saying that Celonis process intelligence kind of does the opposite. It can effectively elevate AI deployments by providing the appropriate business context and orchestration of AI regardless of which tool you use. This ensures your AI is trained on how your business flows and prevents hallucinations that AI are prone to make.

We often say, there is no AI without process intelligence. With Celonis you can use process mining to find value based projects for AI that are tied to clear ROI.

There are also ways that AI is playing a role within our platform through agents and assistance to drive productivity. For example, in our process modeling solution, customers can use AI to fast track process model design, as well as provide a conversational AI assistant to help navigate and digest the process knowledge.

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PEX Network: Can you share insights on the potential for generative AI or predictive analytics in shaping operational processes?

Celonis: We see processes evolving to be more conversational and deal with highly variable scenarios in process execution in complex environments. This holds  extreme potential, but it needs to be grounded with appropriate business context that understands how your business flows.

Without such a grounding to provide guidance, AI is vulnerable to hallucinations and even scheming in some cases. This is why it's important to make sure that the intention of agents is carefully managed and governed to ensure they meet the organizational purpose behind them, otherwise, the risk is amassing large amounts of technical and cognitive debt that will be hard to unwind.

PEX Network: How does Celonis’ platform ensure that organizations translate AI-driven insights into tangible action plans?

Celonis: It all stems from our object-centric process mining technology, which gives a full 3D view of the company’s processes across business silos. From here you can identify areas for agentic automation that can be grounded in very predictable ROI.

This can serve as a barometer for adoption of AI and ensure that AI is deployed in the most meaningful way that is connected to organizational goals across value chains and has a meaningful impact in terms of value.

PEX Network: Do you envision a future where AI-powered process mining predicts operational risks before they happen?

Celonis: Yes. AI can assist in process mining by identifying patterns and making recommendations that can better help analysts predict outcomes.

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PEX Network: Why is it so important to attend events like OPEX Week? What’s been the most valuable part of the conference?

Celonis: It’s the people and networking. It’s important as a technology vendor to connect with people that are involved in change processes to make better connections to their world and how technology can help them.

PEX Network: How would you describe OPEX Week to someone who’s never attended before? If someone is debating whether to attend this conference what would you say?

Celonis: Well it depends on who they are and what they do, but generally, if you are looking for real world examples of people who have led companies through the trenches of transformation, this a great place to learn about how people, processes and technology can come together in the best way.

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