Presented by Celonis
AI adoption is accelerating, but results often fall short of expectations. And enterprise leaders are under pressure to prove measurable ROI from AI solutions – especially as the use of autonomous agents grows and global tariffs disrupt supply chains.
The issue isn’t just AI, says Alex Reinke, co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis, a global leader in process intelligence. “To be successful, enterprise AI needs to understand the context of business processes – and how to improve them,” he explains. Without this business context, AI risks becoming, as Reinke says, “just an internalized social experiment.”
next weeks Cellosphere 2025 AI will tackle the ROI challenge head-on. The three-day event brings together client strategies, practical workshops and live demonstrations, highlighting the enhancements to the Celonis Process Intelligence (PI) platform that help enterprises use ‘Enterprise AI’ powered by PI to continuously improve operations, creating measurable business value at scale.
Focus on measurable ROI
The program’s focus on achieving AI ROI reflects three challenges facing technology and business leaders moving from pilot to production: obsolete systems, break-neck industry change and agentic AI. According to Gartner64% of board members now see AI as a top three priority – yet only 10% of organizations report meaningful financial returns.
Celonis customers are bucking that trend. A Forrester Total Economic Impact Study Found that organizations using its platform achieved 383% ROI over three years with payback in just six months. One company increased sales order automation from 33% to 86%, saving $24.5 million. The study estimates total benefits of $44.1 million over three years due to faster automation, reduced inefficiencies and higher process visibility. These numbers outline a broader pattern – companies that modernize legacy systems and align AI with process optimization see faster payoffs and sustained profits.
Real Companies, Real Results
Cellosphere will highlight how global enterprises are building “future-fit” operations. Mercedes-Benz Group AG and Winmar Group will showcase AI-powered, composable solutions powered by PI, and attendees will see demonstrations of PI-enabled agents in a live production environment.
Among the notable success stories:
AstraZenecaThe pharmaceutical company reduced excess inventory while maintaining the flow of critical medications by using Celonis as the foundation of its OpenAI partnership.
oklahoma state Can answer mass purchase status questions, unlocking over $10 million worth.
Cosentino Clears blocked sales orders up to 5 times faster using an AI-powered credit management assistant.
Raising the stakes for agentic AI
Several sessions will focus on orchestrating AI agents. Rinke says the shift from AI-as-adviser to AI-as-actor changes everything.
“Agents need to understand not only what to do, but also how your specific business actually works,” he explains. “Process intelligence provides those rails."
This leap from recommendation to autonomous action increases the risk exponentially. When agents can independently trigger purchase orders, re-route shipments, or approve exceptions, bad context can mean catastrophically bad results on a large scale.
Celosphere attendees will get to see firsthand how companies are using the Celonis Orchestration Engine to coordinate AI agents with people and systems. Effective orchestration is a vital protection against the chaos of agents working at cross-purposes, duplicating tasks, or letting critical steps slip.
Dealing with tariffs and supply chain shocks
Reinke says volatility in global trade isn’t just a headline — it’s an operational nightmare for how companies deploy AI.
The new tariffs have wide-ranging impacts on procurement, logistics and compliance. Each policy change can spread across thousands of SKUs – forcing new supplier contracts, redirected shipments, and rebalanced inventory. For AI systems trained on stable conditions, that volatility is almost impossible to predict. Traditional AI systems struggle with such variability – but process intelligence gives organizations real-time visibility into how changes move through operations.
The Cellosphere case study will reveal how companies turn disruption into profit. Smurfit Westrock uses PI to optimize inventory and reduce costs amid tariff uncertainty, while ASOS leverages PI to optimize its supply chain operations, increase efficiency, reduce costs and deliver an excellent customer experience.
Platform Over Point Solution
Reinke argues that Celonis’ edge lies in treating process intelligence not as an add-on, but as the foundation of the enterprise stack. Unlike bolt-on optimization tools, the Celonis platform creates a living digital twin of business operations – a constantly updated model enriched by context that lets AI operate effectively from analysis to execution.
“What differentiates Celonis is visibility into system and offline tasks, which is critical for true intelligent automation,” Reinke says. “The platform provides comprehensive capabilities spanning process analysis, design and orchestration rather than a single point solution.”
“Free the Process” and the Future of AI
Celonis is advocating openness through its “Free the Process” movement, promoting fair competition and freeing enterprises from legacy lock-ins. By providing organizations full access to their own process data, open APIs, and a growing partner network, including Hackett Group, ClearOps, and Lobster, Celonis is building the connective tissue for a new era of interoperable automation.
For Reinke, this open foundation transforms AI from a set of experiments into an enterprise engine. “Process intelligence drives a flywheel,” he says. “Better understanding leads to better optimization, which enables better AI – and that, in turn, drives even greater understanding. There is no AI without PI."
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