Appian Transforms Enterprise Data and Process Automation Platform with AI-Driven Innovations

⇨ The latest version of the Appian Platform enhances enterprise AI capabilities, offering tools like AI Copilot to streamline data access and process automation, thereby improving organizational efficiency and adherence to compliance standards.

⇨ SAPinsider research indicates a significant increase in the importance of process automation among companies, with a leap from 40% in 2023 to 54% in 2024, highlighting the growing demand for solutions that enhance productivity, reduce manual tasks, and improve profitability.

⇨ Appian provides strong low-code development tools for end-to-end process automation, enabling non-technical users to create custom applications and workflows that integrate effectively with SAP systems, thereby driving operational improvements across various industries.

SAP Solution Build Partner, Appian (Nasdaq: APPN) recently announced the latest version of the Appian Platform, designed to transform how organizations orchestrate enterprise data and automate processes. This release delivers support for more enterprise AI use cases with expanded compliance, offering a framework to help organizations prepare for current and forthcoming AI regulations.

“The implementation of a generative AI-powered chatbot has transformed our procurement process,” said Michael Parks, Director of Procurement & Contract Services, Texas Department of Public Safety. “This tool provides our procurement officials with immediate access to regulations, information, and guidance on state contracting procedures, all while leveraging secure, internal data and offering precise citations. By streamlining access to critical information, the chatbot enhances efficiency and enables our staff to focus on delivering exceptional service to the public.”

Intelligent process automation refers to a blend of advanced technologies—Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and sometimes Natural Language Processing (NLP) or Optical Character Recognition (OCR)—to automate complex business processes. Unlike traditional automation, which handles only rule-based, repetitive tasks, intelligent process automation can analyze data, recognize patterns, and make decisions in real-time, leading to a more dynamic and adaptive automation system.

Recent SAPinsider research shows that companies are placing greater importance on process automation. The research report Process Productivity and Efficiency Through Process Automation and Intelligence 2024 uncovered that the perception of process automation as “Extremely Important” has notably increased, jumping from 40% in 2023 to 54% in 2024. This is in keeping with related research that shows companies striving for greater productivity, better expense control, fewer manual touchpoints, and improved profitability in an increasingly global marketplace.

Appian offers pre-built connectors for SAP that allow rapid connection to SAP ERP, SAP S/4HANA, and other SAP systems through APIs. These connectors support various functions, such as reading, creating, updating, or deleting SAP data, enabling Appian to leverage real-time data from SAP for its automated workflows. Appian’s platform uses SAP’s open APIs to communicate directly with SAP systems, making it easier to create custom integrations that pull data from SAP into Appian applications and vice versa.

The latest release of the Appian Platform introduces the expansion of several AI capabilities, designed to enhance data and process automation for enterprises. Appian’s Copilot updates enable users to get faster answers from their enterprise data and documents, with plain language and fewer steps. AI Copilot and AI Skills also now meet HITRUST certification requirements. HITRUST certification is a comprehensive security framework that provides a standardized and rigorous approach to managing risk and protecting sensitive information, including compliance with HIPAA.

The US Army is one of the entities benefiting from Appian’s automation capabilities. The US Army recently expanded their relationship with Appian as part of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Army Case Execution System (ACES) production delivery contract. The FMS-ACES contract has been awarded to Forge Group, LLC with Appian as the platform provider. The solution combines the Appian Platform with AWS services available on cArmy.

The FMS-ACES application will replace the Army’s over 30-year-old Case Information System (CISIL). The Appian Platform will modernize and streamline the Army’s FMS process, managing everything from case initiation and lifecycle management to case closeout, logistics, and financials. The application will provide Army users with automated workflow and process features, comprehensive data analysis and visualization capabilities, real-time connections to over 20 government data source systems, and detailed reporting capability. The new system will support approximately 1,000 users with about 600 concurrent users, including case managers, logisticians, financial personnel, and audit staff.

Worth noting is the US Army uses SAP-based software through its Global Combat Support System–Army (GCSS-Army). GCSS-Army, a web-based logistics and financial ERP, is built on SAP software, enabling material management, supply chain visibility, and property accountability across the Army’s global operations.

Appian AI enhancements in 24.3 include:

• AI Copilot for data fabric, now available in preview, offers immediate insights across your enterprise data within a unified chat space. AI Copilot provides transparent and trustworthy answers, citing source data for verification.

• Enterprise Copilot allows users to easily locate information across curated sets of documents by simply asking the AI, even without knowing the specific document set.

• Process HQ with AI-suggested starting points accelerates process investigations by offering AI-suggested views with KPIs, process details, and filters, ensuring the right questions are being answered.

• AI Copilot in Case Management Studio helps users quickly pinpoint information with case comment and document summaries, and helps users create data fields with a guided data modeling experience.

• AI Copilot for developers helps developers automate test-case generation for expression rules, both making test generation faster and increasing test coverage.

• Prompt Builder AI skill is now available natively in additional new Appian Cloud locations, including Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Ireland, India, and Brazil for additional support in Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, and South America.

Additional updates include enhancements to the Appian Platform’s data fabric, low-code, and automation capabilities. These upgrades streamline workflows by integrating people, technology, and data into a cohesive system, allowing users to tackle business challenges more efficiently and focus on higher-impact tasks.

“Appian AI Copilot empowers users to explore and understand their enterprise data more effectively, using natural language and fewer steps. Now, you can ask AI Copilot questions about your entire data catalog, providing comprehensive insights and enabling more informed decision-making,” said Sanat Joshi, Executive Vice President of Product and Solutions at Appian.

What this means for SAPinsiders

Share your experiences with intelligent process automation. SAPinsider will be publishing its next research report on Process Automation and Intelligence in July 2025. SAPinsiders have consistently indicated in research conducted recently that leveraging process automation and process Intelligence platforms will enable them to digitalize, discover, understand, and manage business process execution more effectively. While many of them may already have built a foundation in terms of process automation, Intelligent process automation capabilities will allow them to leverage advanced algorithms to model specific events across their processes, visualize these model to identify deviations, find process bottlenecks and perform root cause analyses of process failures. If you are interested in participating in this important research initiative, please email mark.vigoroso@wispubs.com.

Take advantage of Appian’s industry-specific templates. SAP customers in regulated industries like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing can benefit from Appian’s industry-specific templates and pre-built compliance workflows. By customizing these workflows, customers can adhere to regulatory standards while reducing manual compliance efforts. Also, Appian’s process optimization tools can be configured to continuously assess supply chain workflows, improving areas like order fulfillment and inventory management by identifying inefficiencies or bottlenecks in SAP-related processes.

With Appian, you get strong low-code, end-to-end process automation. Appian’s primary strength is its strong focus on low-code development, allowing non-technical users to quickly build custom applications with minimal coding. It provides a unified platform that combines low-code capabilities with automation tools, enabling organizations to create end-to-end workflows that integrate with other systems. Appian excels at end-to-end process automation, allowing users to design, execute, and manage complex workflows that span multiple departments and systems. Its case management tools are particularly useful for processes that require data from multiple sources and involve human intervention.