The landscape of enterprise automation is undergoing a major shift, moving beyond bots and predefined workflows. The 2025 Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Enterprise Process Automation provides a clear roadmap for this new era, assessing the key innovations that will redefine how businesses operate.
The central theme? As automation becomes more intelligent, autonomous, and democratized, the need for strategic orchestration has never been more critical. The future isn't just about what you automate; it's about how you connect and control everything to drive real business value.
Now is the time for leaders to prepare for this more autonomous, orchestrated future. Read on for some key takeaways from the report and trends to watch.
1. Agentic automation is here, but we haven't yet seen mainstream adoption
The market is moving beyond deterministic, predefined workflows toward probablistic, AI-driven automation. This strategic shift is ushering in the era of agentic automation, where “AI agents automate complex business processes using probabilistic techniques.”
As an emergent market, the technologies that will make this possible are still taking shape. Some of the key innovations to watch include AI agents, multiagent systems and computer use for AI agents.
And while Gartner predicts AI agents will reach a plateau in the next two to five years, we're likley still further away from seeing mainstream adoption of multiagent systems.
Action for leaders:
As more stories of failed AI pilots and lack of ROI continue to unfold, organizations who focus on building the necessary guardrails and frameworks for AI success today (rather than chasing AI without a defined use case) are primed to be the first to realize value when multiagent systems become more mainstream.
Focus on governance, data security, compliance, and auditability. Robust monitoring and traceability for AI agents will be critical to managing risks and complying with AI regulations. Even in an agentic future, processes will likely always require a mix of determinisitic and probablistic automation.
2. Platform consolidation vs. point solutions reach a tipping point
Many organizations are drowning in disparate automation tools, leading to a critical decision point: consolidate your tool sprawl onto a single platform or continue struggling with the high cost and complexity.
Gartner predicts that “By 2029, 80% of enterprises with mature automation practices are expected to use consolidated platforms that orchestrate both business processes and agentic automation.”
The report highlights business orchestration and automation technologies (BOAT) as the path forward. BOAT platforms offer a unified approach, combining capabilities like business process automation (BPA), low-code (LCAP), integration (iPaaS), and RPA to simplify your tech stack and accelerate development.
Action for leaders:
Reevaluate your current portfolio of automation tools to determine if a consolidated platform or a point solution approach provides the right balance of capabilities and complexity for your organization.
3. Citizen development is accelerating, requiring strong governance
Citizen application development platforms, no-code platforms, and no-code agent builders are starting to gain momentum, allowing business users or citizen developers to build agents and apps through visual or conversational interfaces.
While this democratization of development boosts agility, it also introduces risks related to security, scalability, and technical debt.
Action for leaders:
Establish clear governance policies for automations and agents created outside of IT. Empower your teams with enterprise-grade tools that provide gaurdrails for development and consider investing in a center of excellence to ensure citizen development is effective, secure, and sustainable.
4. End-to-end process visibility is non-negotiable
To automate effectively and with strong governance, you need real-time insight into how your business processes operate across interconnected systems. End-to-end process visibility isn't a luxury—it's non-negotiable.
Platforms with process mining tools provide this crucial insight by analyzing event data from your systems to discover and monitor your workflows before and after you automate. This allows you to identify the "hot areas"—like repetitive, time-consuming tasks—that are perfect candidates for automation and measure the impact of your initiatives.
Action for leaders:
Invest in process visibility tools as the foundation for your automation strategy. Gartner recommends deploying small, short-term pilots to create awareness and deliver immediate value.
Appian is your partner for end-to-end orchestration
Navigating the landscape ahead requires a partner experienced in complex process automation that can offer unified platform capabilities. The Gartner report positions Appian as a sample vendor in two of the most critical categories for the future of automation:
- Business orchestration and automation technologies (BOAT)
Process mining platforms
We believe this validates our leadership in end-to-end orchestration capabilities. The Appian Platform provides the process mining tools to see your workflows, the low-code foundation to accelerate your development, and the BOAT capabilities to orchestrate your most complex processes—all in one place.
For 25 years, we’ve been helping the world's leading businesses automate their most complex processes. Now, we’re ready to help you consolidate, modernize, and transform your business with AI.
Ready to learn more? Get your copy of the full report.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Hype Cycle are a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
