The context factor for AI agents

Context rules in the new era of AI, as enterprises face AI systems that know everything about the internet, yet still struggle to support their processes.

As AI models from frontier model providers such as Google, OpenAI and Anthropic become more powerful, the assumption is that the models will get better at helping enterprises with their business processes. However, that is not always the case. Many enterprises find that while these models are good at trip planning, for example, they are not always the best at automating core business tasks.

“The difference is that AI knows a lot about London and a lot about tourist attractions, but it doesn't know how this particular customer operates the supply chain, doesn't have that 360-degree context about everything that's going on in that organization,” said Alex Rinke, CEO and co-founder of process intelligence vendor Celonis, on the Targeting AI podcast from TechTarget AI & Emerging Tech.

“That tacit knowledge and that context about your workflows and processes is actually your competitive moat,” Rinke continued. “How you serve customers, how you build products, how you manufacture, how you run your supply chain, those are things that are really, really important parts of your moat as a company.”

The goal for Celonis is to help enterprises own their context and data, rather than surrendering that information to vendors that use it to train competing models or resell it to customers. The vendor does this by building a digital twin of an organization that captures its processes, enabling AI agents to understand how work is performed and make informed decisions.

Not having the proper context can be costly, Rinke said.

“Without the right context, without process intelligence, AI is not going to deliver a strong ROI, and you're not going to be able to reinvent all of the work and the processes that happen in your company,” he said.

Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host covering AI software and systems. Shaun Sutner is senior news director for TechTarget's AI & Emerging Tech team. He is a veteran journalist with more than 30 years of news experience.