Appian held its traditional Appian Europe last week in London, in which it made known the keys and the moment the company is going through to clients and partners on the Old Continent. As usual, it is Matt Calkins, the CEO and one of the founders of the North American multinational, who sets the tone for where technological trends and Appian’s strategy and news are going to go.
Manuel Navarro. London
As in recent events, Artificial Intelligence occupies a good part of the meeting. Matt Calkins is one of the few voices from the United States that has certain objections to the evolution and development of AI by other technology firms and its adoption by companies. On this occasion, the head of Appian addressed the opportunities, challenges and strategic approach that the industry must adopt so that AI stops being a promise and becomes a force for transformation in critical business processes.
The CEO of Appian asked himself “what will we do with AI in 100 years or even 10?” Because, although AI can be a revolutionary technology and can be widely used, the truth is that it is not used well. AI is applied poorly. And that fact became clear in July, when a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was published stating that 95% of AI implementations were failures.
The AI would be
Matt Calkins put special emphasis on common approach errors. In his opinion, AI is not a self-sufficient technology, but rather depends on its integration with data and processes. If access to data is the prerequisite recognized by everyone (“AI is only as good as the data it receives,” he said), the less perceived but equally important piece is processes. It is within the workflow, in the most critical tasks, where many people and steps are involved, where AI can generate true value.
And this is the key to what Appian offers and what differentiates it from other companies. «At Appian we have spent years developing complementary technologies, creating a data structure so that AI can be connected to data from across the company without having to migrate that data. We have a leading process framework to connect AI to those collaboration networks between people and digital workers who are taking many steps and doing the most important jobs in today’s companies.
That is, the company has been building platforms that integrate Artificial Intelligence, data and processes since long before the implosion of generative AI, and that facilitate advanced automation without forcing massive migrations of information. And all of this leads to what Calkins called serious AI. “When you combine AI with data and processes, you can tackle bigger jobs and create greater value. We call that serious AI. And serious AI is already a reality, although, perhaps, many people do not know where serious AI is being used.
For Calkins, he assured that this serious AI is being used away from the media spotlight. Specifically in high-volume administrative processes, such as document management, purchasing, compliance or contracting. For example, Appian’s DocCenter tool has managed to automate the classification and processing of millions of documents in large organizations, with accuracy levels of 95-99%. This solution not only “reads” documents, but classifies them, extracts relevant information, launches actions and integrates them into critical workflows, reducing tasks from days to minutes.
Modernize and reduce legacy applications
Calkins addressed a crucial problem for companies such as the accumulation of legacy applications, which are expensive to maintain and difficult to integrate. “AI and platforms like Appian – he defended – offer a great opportunity to modernize and merge dozens or hundreds of outdated systems into modular, secure and easily upgradeable applications.” In this sense, the CEO of Appian shared real examples in which companies have drastically reduced the number of applications, accelerating customer service and cutting their infrastructure budgets by up to 40%.
For Calkins, modernization is not a simple migration but a collaboration: AI suggests new structures, interfaces and rules that developers can adapt, allowing a functional and not just a technical renewal of systems.
Appian’s CEO highlighted that “when you combine AI with data and processes, you can tackle bigger jobs and create more important values.”
Appian presents Agent Studio
The CEO of Appian also presented Agent Studio, the company’s new development aimed at radically differentiating its intelligent agents. Calkins highlighted the tool’s ease of configuration in natural language. Its main feature is that companies can deploy Appian’s most powerful AI agents at scale.
These agents can reason, manage unexpected situations, and act on company data to automate complex tasks. Appian agents are powerful because they inherit critical platform properties, such as full data access, process context, and security barriers. With Agent Studio, business users can use natural language to define high-level goals.
Additionally, AI agents use Appian’s data fabric and tools to determine the most effective path forward. With a complete view of enterprise data, agents make smarter decisions, interpret unstructured data from multiple sources, and make adjustments in real time. Appian agents are integrated into the process, facilitating governance and auditability of their behavior.
