Introduced by Celonis
After a yr of boardroom declarations about “AI transformation,” this was the week the place enterprise leaders got here collectively to speak about what really works. Talking from the stage at Celosphere in Munich, Celonis co-founder and co-CEO Alexander Rinke set the tone early in his keynote:
“Only 11 % of companies are seeing measurable benefits from AI projects today,” he stated. “That’s not an adoption problem. That’s a context problem.”
It’s a sentiment acquainted to anybody who’s tried to deploy AI inside a big enterprise. You may’t automate what you don’t perceive — and most organizations nonetheless lack a unified image of how work of their corporations actually will get executed.
Celonis’ reply, showcased throughout three days on the firm’s annual occasion, was much less about new tech acronyms and extra about connective tissue: methods to make AI match inside the messy, residing processes that drive enterprise. The corporate framed it as attaining an actual “Return on AI (ROAI)” — measurable impression that comes solely when intelligence is grounded in course of context.
A residing mannequin of how the enterprise works
On the coronary heart of the keynote was what Rinke known as a “living digital twin of your operations.” Celonis has been constructing towards this second for years — however this was the primary time the corporate made clear how far that idea has developed.
“We start by freeing the process,” stated Rinke. “Freeing it from the restrictions of your current legacy systems.” Information Core, Celonis’ knowledge infrastructure, extracts uncooked knowledge from supply methods. It’s able to querying billions of information in close to actual time with sub-minute refresh — extending visibility past conventional methods of document.
Constructed on this basis, the Course of Intelligence Graph sits on the heart of the Celonis Platform. It’s a system-agnostic, graph-based mannequin that unifies knowledge throughout methods, apps, and even gadgets, together with task-mining knowledge that captures clicks, spreadsheets, and browser exercise. It combines this knowledge with enterprise context—enterprise guidelines, KPIs, benchmarks, and exceptions. Each transaction, rule, and course of interplay turns into a part of a repeatedly up to date duplicate that displays how the group really operates.
On prime of the Graph, the corporate’s new Construct Expertise permits organizations to investigate, design, and function AI-driven, composable processes — integrating AI the place it delivers enterprise impression, not simply technical demos:
Analyze the place processes stall or repeat
Design the long run state, setting outcomes, guardrails, and AI touchpoints
Function with people, methods, and AI brokers working in sync — now orchestrated by means of a usually out there Orchestration Engine that may set off and monitor each step in a single circulate
It’s a deliberate shift from discovery-driven AI pilots to outcome-driven AI operations — and a blueprint for orchestrating agentic AI, the place human groups, methods, and autonomous brokers work collectively by means of shared course of context somewhat than in silos.
Actual-world proof: Mercedes-Benz, Vinmar, and Uniper
The Celosphere stage provided actual proof of theCelonisPlatform in motion, by means of stay tales from prospects already constructing on it.
Mercedes-Benz shared how course of intelligence turned their “connective tissue” throughout the semiconductor disaster. “We had data everywhere — plants, suppliers, logistics,” recalled Dr. Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Administration of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. “What we didn’t have was a way to see it together. Celonis helped us connect those dots fast enough to act.”
The partnership has since expanded throughout eight of the corporate’s ten most crucial processes, from provide chain to high quality to after-sales. However what impressed the viewers wasn’t simply the size — it was the cultural shift.
“If you show data in context, and let teams visualize processes, you also change the culture,” Burzer stated. “It’s not just process transformation — it’s people transformation.”
At Vinmar, CEO Vishal Baid described Celonis as “the foundation of our automation and AI strategy.” His international plastics distribution enterprise has already automated its whole order-to-cash course of for a $3 B unit, attaining a 40 % productiveness elevate. However Baid wasn’t there to only have a good time completed work — he was trying forward.
“Now we’re tackling the non-algorithmic stuff,” he stated. “Matching purchase and sales orders sounds simple until you have thousands of edge cases. We’re building an AI agent that can do that allocation intelligently. That’s the next frontier.”
And within the power sector, Uniper, with accomplice Microsoft, demonstrated how process-aware AI copilots are already reshaping operations. Utilizing Celonis and Microsoft’s AI stack, Uniper can predict when hydropower crops will want upkeep — and cluster these jobs to cut back downtime and emissions.
“Each technician, each part, each system plays a role in a living process,” stated Hans Berg, Uniper’s CIO. “The human can’t see all of it. But process intelligence can — and it can nudge the system toward the best outcome.”
Agnes Heftberger, CVP & CEO, Microsoft Germany & Austria, who joined Berg on stage, summed it up crisply:
“The hard part isn’t building AI features — it’s scaling them responsibly,” she defined. “You need to marry intelligence with the beating heart of the company: its processes.”
Throughout the worldwide group, Celonis stories greater than $8 billion in realized enterprise valueand over 120 licensed worth champions — proof that course of intelligence is driving measurable impression far past pilots. Rinke known as it “the early proof points of a true return on AI.”
From closed methods to composable intelligence
Celosphere 2025 marked a shift from structure to interoperability — from defining enterprise AI to creating it work throughout boundaries.
Rinke’s imaginative and prescient for the long run is unapologetically open: “Good things grow from open ecosystems,” he stated. That philosophy is taking form by means of deeper platform integrations — together with Microsoft Cloth, Databricks, and Bloomfilter — with zero-copy, bidirectional lakehouse entry that lets prospects question course of knowledge in place with minimal latency. The corporate additionally introduced MCP Server help for embedding the Course of Intelligence Graph immediately into agentic AI platforms like Amazon Bedrock and Microsoft Copilot Studio.
These updates make “composable enterprise AI” tangible — organizations can now assemble and govern AI options throughout ecosystems somewhat than being locked into any single vendor.
Reasonably than competing on who has the “best agent,” the message was that enterprise AI will thrive when brokers work collectively by means of shared context and fashions that mirror how companies really run.
“Every vendor is bringing out their own agent,” Rinke stated. “But each one is limited to that vendor’s world. If they can’t work together, they can’t work for you. That’s what process intelligence fixes.”
The concept drew sustained applause. For corporations juggling a number of cloud platforms, ERPs, and knowledge instruments, composability isn’t simply elegant; it’s survival.
Past operations: knowledge, democracy, and path
The closing moments of the keynote took an surprising flip — from enterprise structure to human braveness. Venezuelan opposition chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado joined stay by way of satellite tv for pc to share how her motion used knowledge, encrypted apps, and civic coordination to show election fraud and mobilize tens of millions.
It was a robust distinction: the identical rules — transparency, accountability, context — at work in each enterprise and democracy.
“Technology can be a weapon or a liberator,” Machado stated. “It depends on who holds the context.”
Her phrases landed with weight in a room full of individuals used to speaking about knowledge, methods, and governance — a reminder that context isn’t simply technical, it’s human.
Why this yr mattered
Celosphere 2025 marked a shift in how enterprises strategy AI — from experimentation to outcomes grounded in course of intelligence. The shift was evident in each tone and know-how, with a extra highly effective Information Core, enhanced Course of Intelligence Graph, and new Construct Expertise. However the deeper takeaway was philosophical: AI solely scales when it’s grounded in how individuals and methods really work collectively.
Celonis president Carsten Thoma was candid in acknowledging that early process-mining initiatives typically “stormed in with discovery” earlier than understanding organizational worth — a lesson that now defines the corporate’s measured, pragmatic strategy to enterprise AI.
Rinke put it greatest close to the top of his keynote:
“We’re not just automating steps,” he stated. “We’re building enterprises that can adapt instantly, innovate freely, and improve continuously.”
Missed it? Meet up with all of the highlights from Celosphere 2025 right here.
Sponsored articles are content material produced by an organization that’s both paying for the publish or has a enterprise relationship with VentureBeat, they usually’re at all times clearly marked. For extra data, contact gross [email protected].
