The Next Frontier of Agentic AI

After years of pilots, proofs of concept, and experimentation, most enterprises now understand that access to powerful AI models was never the real constraint. The harder problem has been turning intelligence — human and agentic — into reliable, repeatable, automated business outcomes. Unfortunately, teams have been fixated on the technology instead of the approach.

Many organizations have already automated the easy stuff — the 20% or so of work that’s consistent and robotic. Automation has been proven to deliver real savings for these stable, predictable processes. For the bulk of cross-functional, dynamic, and “it depends” processes, however, rigid, rules-based, deterministic automation isn’t applicable. AI offered a promising solution, and it was applied liberally as an automation cure-all.

Unfortunately, AI wasn’t asked to solve a problem; it was asked to complete tasks and processes. As a result, while AI added generation, summarization, and recommendations, humans remained essential for translations, managing handoffs, and filling other stubborn process gaps built into nearly every legacy process. AI then enabled business process automation to bridge some of those gaps by interpreting inputs, making next-step decisions, and taking action across systems.

But your C-suite still sees stalled initiatives, ongoing investments, and pilots that never graduate into production. Meanwhile, human workers step in “just to be safe” as outputs are questioned, deliverables showing the telltale signs of generative articulation fail to gain downstream trust, and ROI always seems just another quarter or two away from the P&L.

The issue here is right in the name: your business process automation attempts to automate existing, output-focused processes. AI helps, but only at the task and output levels. Humans then remain critical to goal attainment, keeping the complexity, cost, delay, and risk that automation was supposed to eliminate.

A better approach for AI and automation success is to focus first on the desired outcome.

Aligning effort with outcomes: Workstream versus workflow

Let’s level-set on terminology:

Tasks are individual units of work, such as extracting data from a document or entering data into a form.
Processes are a series of tasks necessary to produce an output, such as invoice processing.
Workflows operationalize how work moves across stages, people, and systems, from accepting incoming emailed and paper invoices to paying or rejecting each invoice.
Workstreams provide the linear execution spine through which workflows, processes, and tasks deliver business outcomes, such as improving cash flow through better invoice processing.

Too many enterprises are attempting to automate existing tasks, processes, and workflows with agentic AI, applying reasoning to rigid steps and rules to areas open to interpretation.

Instead, it’s time to rethink automation via workstreams that achieve outcomes. With this framework, workstreams create a linear view of the coordination and execution required to reach a goal, reflecting how, when, and where humans and AI agents collaborate across workflows, processes, and tasks to deliver that outcome.

Automating workstreams creates flexible, dynamic, outcome-based automations that mix agentic reasoning, robotic execution, and human-in-the-loop (HITL) decision-making in a single, linear flow that business users understand and trust. AI adds the ability to interpret context, handle ambiguity, and adapt dynamically to determine which task is next, which processes are appropriate, and where specific policies apply.

Taking a workstream approach expands automation’s scope to handle up to 80% of work. The remaining portion is covered by intentional HITL oversight, reserving human judgment for cases where it truly matters.

Workstreams evolve AI to achieve outcomes

Workstream automation isn’t a replacement for process automation. Instead, it’s a natural evolution of automation that uses linear, business-legible flows of work to drive business-driven outcomes. Workstreams combine the capabilities of RPA-based automation, agentic reasoning, and human judgment in a single, coherent execution model.

Traditional automation broke processes down into executable pathways of processes and workflows. Want to automate invoice processing? OK, determine the related PO number, match the invoice to the PO and packing slip, validate prices and quantities, and generate payment. Can’t determine the PO number? Quantities don’t match? Totals don’t add up? When the rules are broken, the automation breaks, too.

Simplicity is the key to workstreams. Instead of handling variability with hundreds of if-then rules and complex branching logic, outcomes are expressed linearly, with sequential stages and goals. Receive incoming invoices. Extract data. Determine invoice type and subsequent stages. Match to PO. Add HITL for exceptions. Post to ERP. Different automation approaches will be better suited to different tasks and processes necessary to get there, including using intelligent orchestration tools to manage RPA, agents, and human workers along the way.

The workstream then delivers an outcome, for example, improving cash flow. Task automations handle predictable, rule-based work, such as receiving invoices and posting transactions, where precision, reliability, and speed matter. Agentic AI makes decisions on invoice classifications, routing, and matching, where interpretation, decision-making, and context matter. Human workers step in only when necessary, where accountability, experience, and judgment matter. However, the entire workstream delivers a business outcome in one coherent flow.

Combining OpenAI’s models with our APA System for workstream automation with governance, orchestration, and control

We’ve all been wowed by the promise of AI. Putting it to work to automate workstreams and achieve enterprise outcomes, however, requires a platform that brings together intelligence, trust, coordination, and more.

Our recently announced collaboration with OpenAI combines its advanced reasoning and interpretation, which understand intent and context, with our Process Reasoning Engine (PRE), which guides actions and securely orchestrates, controls, and governs our pre-built solutions across systems, agents, and human workers. The result is constrained, observable, enterprise-safe automation at scale through our Agentic Solutions: purpose-built packages that automate high-value workstreams in finance, procurement, customer support, and other mission-critical areas. They also include auditing and governance, and can be deployed in just days.

Drilling down, OpenAI’s advanced reasoning models play an important role within our Agentic Solutions. Where traditional automations get bogged down in rules and restrictions, automated workstreams leverage agentic reasoning to understand intent, interpret information, and evaluate potential next steps.

Our Agentic Solutions use OpenAI’s models to decide how to move forward based on context, reasoning, and even rules, while PRE controls and executes the workstream to reach the goal in alignment with protocols, policies, and regulations. This separation between decision-making and execution is intentional, and OpenAI’s models never manipulate enterprise systems or gain direct access to data, ensuring trust is always maintained.

Automate enterprise workstreams with Agentic Solutions

Enterprise automation has quickly moved from task-based RPA to agentic process automation, continually evolving to automate more and more processes. Now, your board expects real impact, not just more chatbots, assistants, and single-purpose agents.

To continue your momentum and scale beyond pilots and experiments, it’s time to focus on outcome-based workstreams that orchestrate, control, and govern agentic reasoning, robotic execution, and HITL oversight to automate 80% of work with enterprise-level trust.

Use the best reasoning models from OpenAI and our robust APA System to turn automation ideas into strategic, scalable ROI generators. What makes it possible is the fundamental evolution from automating processes to automating workstreams, where complex business goals are achieved through intelligent reasoning and coordination.

Learn more about our Agentic Solutions today. Or, better yet, let us show you with a tailored demonstration.