Celonis said it will acquire Symbioworld GmbH, a business process management software vendor, in a move that brings together process mining with AI-drive process modeling.
Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Celonis and Symbioworld have also launched a version of Symbio's Process Cockpit in beta with select customers that will meld process insights and data in one experience. Disclosure: I used to work for Celonis.
The process automation and management market are aiming to make process mining more accessible via AI, generative AI and various customer experiences.
The game is to meld process models, KPIs, insights and workflows into one experience. For instance, Microsoft bought Minit in 2022 and then wrapped that process mining technology into a Power Automate wrapper. SAP acquired Signavio and has its platform as well as Datasphere as a wrapper with additions such as LeanIX. UIPath has built out its automation platform that puts process mining together with other technologies including its AutoPilot generative AI. Celonis had its execution management system. Ultimately, generative AI has the potential to build process models as well as make them more accessible to a broader range of users. Rest assured there will be more process copilots and assistants in the near future.
In a statement, Celonis said Symbio would help it "provide managers and employees with a unified end-to-end process experience." Ultimately, Celonis is looking to use its process mining technology to surface how processes actually run and then leverage Symbio to continually improve them. with a "process first approach."
Symbio has five core products:
- Navigator, which guides employees in daily work via an AI Copilot.
- Action Center, a part of Navigator that simplified task tracking and compliance.
- Process Cockpit, which gives enterprises a holistic view of processes, metrics and optimizations.
- Business Manager, which maps processes via AI into a flow.
Celonis and Symbio initially collaborated on Process Cockpit, but the companies noted that enhanced process visibility is available in Navigator, which is embedded into Microsoft Teams. The companies added that the combination of generative AI assistants, process data and process knowledge can provide intelligence to a broader base of users.
