Business process specialist Appian claims it is giving its public and private sector customers the ability to embed artificial intelligence directly into their operations, delivering measurable gains in efficiency, accuracy, and speed.
On day one of its annual Appian World conference in Denver yesterday, the Nasdaq-listed firm said AI-powered document processing through its platform had surged nearly eightfold year-on-year, with 70% of Appian Cloud customers now using AI in areas such as process modelling and advanced applications.
The US vendor’s latest product release allows AI to be embedded in any user interface, enabling businesses to power their processes from within, rather than treating AI as an isolated tool.
Early adopters, including Acclaim Autism, Century Fire Protection, Hitachi, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the University of South Florida, are already reporting significant benefits.
Acclaim Autism, which supports children with autism spectrum disorder, reduced its patient intake time by 83% after deploying Appian AI to extract critical information from medical documents — a move which the organisation’s president Jamie Turner told Appian delegates, took just three weeks to implement.
The company credits Appian’s ‘private AI’ model with maintaining compliance with strict healthcare privacy regulations.
Meanwhile, Century Fire Protection used Appian AI to overhaul its accounts payable system, slashing invoice processing times by 36% and halving the number of missed early payment discounts.
Hitachi
Japanese industrial giant Hitachi also turned to Appian to consolidate data and streamline its sales CRMs across its global businesses so that it could upsell and research future opportunities.
Bala Krishnapillai, SVP & CIO, Hitachi told delegates at the mountain view resort where the event is taking place, that the multinational expects to cut operating expenses by 20% and boost time-to-market by 60% through improved data quality and process automation.
The Texas Department of Public Safety meanwhile has introduced a generative AI chatbot, built on Appian, to guide officials through complex state procurement rules, while the University of South Florida deployed an AI assistant to help academic advisors better support up to 50,000 students annually.
“AI is most powerful when it’s embedded within processes, not operating in isolation,” said Randy Guard, chief marketing officer at Appian. “Our customers are proving that AI agents inside processes can optimise operations, enhance accuracy, and accelerate outcomes.”
Appian said it believes that the combination of AI and strong process governance is the key to unlocking artificial intelligence’s full potential for businesses.
Agentic AI platform
At the conference, Appian also unveiled significant enhancements to its agentic AI platform, aimed at helping organisations build, deploy, and scale intelligent process applications.
This includes the beta launch of Agent Studio and the general availability of AI Document Center.
The vendor claims that Agent Studio enables the design and deployment of AI agents with greater autonomy and contextual awareness, able to reason through multi-step tasks and dynamically interact with multiple systems.
AI Document Center offers an all-in-one solution for enterprise-grade document processing, already helping customers like Century Fire Protection to modernise their invoice operations.
The release also adds Smart Search, allowing semantic search across data fabrics and documents, alongside new capabilities for scaling generative AI use cases in high-volume environments via Appian Cloud’s autoscale feature.
“AI works best in a process. Appian’s process orchestration and data fabric provide the foundation needed to get real value out of AI while maintaining data security,” said Michael Beckley, chief technology officer and founder of Appian.
Responsible AI vs. Innovation Mandate
With Appian’s strong public sector presence and unwavering commitment to responsible AI, how does the company reconcile that with the White House’s push for rapid AI innovation and the loosening of prior guardrails?
It’s a question TechInformed put to Beckley at the Appian World conference.
“If you’re going to move fast with AI, it makes sense that you do it within a secure privacy framework — which is what Appian delivers,” Beckley said.
Appian’s founder CTO Michael Beckley
“Speed shouldn’t come at the cost of safety… You can go fast and off a cliff again like 2008 if you like, but the largest institutions in the world are smart enough to choose a safe, secure framework.”
He cautioned that the real risk lies with smaller, unregulated players: “The companies with nothing to lose are the most aggressive adopters.”
Beckley also acknowledged the political complexity of the moment: “We all have to work with people whose political views differ… While we’re seeing deregulation, we’re also seeing a willingness to confront Big Tech and data abuse, which I applaud.”
On Appian’s federal business, Beckley noted that while the US government is just one part of its 200+ public sector clients, the pace of change has significantly impacted the company.
“It’s been exciting and challenging,” he said. “Agencies are coming directly to us now, saying: ‘To meet this new mandate, we need to move fast’ — and we can help them do that. What used to take years, we’re now delivering in months.”
He recalled Appian’s role in standing up healthcare systems during the launch of the ‘Obama Care’ Affordable Care Act: “Seventeen million people got health insurance because we were able to automate processes the government couldn’t. That’s the kind of rapid change that can happen when you’re told, ‘you must do this.’”
