Process intelligence: The foundation that gives meaning in the AI era

At a recent Celonis workshop in Santiago, one idea stayed with me: artificial intelligence (AI) delivers real value when it operates with context, and process intelligence could provide that context.

AI is shaping every transformation agenda. Executives expect it to unlock efficiency, reshape customer interactions and create new ways of scaling. Yet in practice, I’ve seen that the difference between expectations and outcomes depends less on the technology itself and more on how well organizations understand their own processes.

BPM as the starting point

Business process management (BPM) often doesn’t get the headlines, but it is where sustainable change begins. It gives organizations structure and a shared language, helping teams understand workflows, align priorities and sustain improvements. In my experience, this clarity matters just as much as ambition.

When uncertainty and volatility are the norm, BPM serves as an anchor. It stabilizes operations by making them transparent and measurable. Far from being rigid, it creates the foundation that allows change to happen with confidence.

Process intelligence as the bridge

The next step is process intelligence. Instead of assuming how operations should run, process intelligence uses real data to show how they actually do. That distinction is crucial. Bottlenecks, deviations and hidden patterns become visible.

With this insight, leaders can focus where it matters most. Process intelligence doesn’t guarantee success, but it creates conditions where AI can detect risks, support decision-making and scale automation in ways that are meaningful and measurable.

For me, this is where the workshop in Santiago connected powerfully with what I’ve seen in transformation projects. Without understanding the real process, AI risks becoming noise. With visibility, it has the chance to become impact.

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Two perspectives from Latin America

Hearing from LATAM Airlines and Mercado Libre brought these ideas into sharp relief. Both companies operate at remarkable scale and are approaching process intelligence from different stages of maturity.

• LATAM Airlines is the largest carrier in South America, flying 82 million passengers in 2024 and generating more than US$13 billion in revenue. It has started its process intelligence journey in accounts payable, a finance-critical back-office function. Beginning here may sound modest, but for a company that coordinates operations across dozens of airports and countries, clarity in financial workflows has implications that extend far beyond accounting. Even in its early phase, the initiative shows how a single back-office process can influence stability at scale.
• Mercado Libre, with $20.8 billion in revenue in 2024, has grown into one of the region’s most influential companies. Its Celonis program is one of the largest in Latin America and focuses on support functions such as finance and HR. Having written previously about its operational strengths, I found it compelling to see how it is now extending process discipline into the transversal functions that underpin growth. This example demonstrates that value can be captured more than just in logistics or customer-facing operations but also in the processes that keep the enterprise running day to day.

What struck me in listening to both cases is the contrast. LATAM is at the beginning of its journey, using process intelligence to shed light on a critical finance process. Mercado Libre is already scaling, embedding process mining across back-office areas to capture value systematically. Together they show that transformation can start small or scale wide but in either case, clarity is what makes it credible.

Beyond the frontline

One of the key lessons from both examples is that business transformation does not reside only in the frontline. Back-office functions such as finance, HR and procurement are often overlooked. Yet they are precisely where inefficiencies accumulate and where transparency can unlock substantial value.

I’ve seen too many organizations pour resources into customer-facing initiatives while neglecting the processes that support them. Mercado Libre’s approach challenges that tendency. By focusing on back-office clarity, it is building a foundation that strengthens the entire system. LATAM’s early steps suggest that even a single process, if addressed with discipline, can ripple across the wider organization.

A regional perspective

It also matters that this conversation took place in Chile. Latin America combines world-class industries with operational challenges that are as complex as any in the world. The region is used to doing more with less and in that context process discipline is a necessity.

By hosting the workshop in Santiago, Celonis is signaling that Latin America has a central role to play in shaping how process intelligence is applied globally. For me, this is encouraging. It places our region not just as a consumer of technology, but as a contributor to its evolution.

AI will continue to accelerate whatever it touches. What gives that acceleration direction is clarity. BPM provides the framework, process intelligence provides the visibility and together they create the conditions for AI to generate outcomes that matter.

For Latin America, and for any global enterprise operating at scale, clarity in processes is more than supportive. It is decisive. It is what allows AI to move from potential to sustained value.

All Access: BPM Business Process Management 2025

Business process management (BPM) is a discipline that helps organizations improve their efficiency and effectiveness by streamlining their processes. In 2025, BPM will be more important than ever as organizations look to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.

All Access: BPM 2025 from PEX Network will help professionals get an understanding of the latest developments in BPM, including how to identify and improve key processes, how to implement BPM technology, and how to measure the success of BPM initiatives.

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