AITech Interview with Marlon Dumas, Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder of Apromore.

Explore how Marlon Dumas, Apromore co-founder & CPO, bridges course of intelligence and AI to drive smarter, compliant, and end-to-end automation.

Marlon, are you able to share a bit about your skilled background and your journey to co-founding Apromore, the place you now function Chief Product Officer?

My journey to co-founding Apromore started in 2009 whereas main analysis on course of mining at Queensland University of Technology. Alongside my former PhD scholar and collaborator, Marcello La Rosa, we developed an open-source platform named ‘AProMoRe’ that rapidly gained international traction with assist from Prof. Wil van der Aalst (usually referred to as the Godfather of Process Mining) and contributions from greater than 15 establishments. As demand grew for scalable, business-friendly course of intelligence instruments, we noticed a transparent alternative. Backed by The University of Melbourne, we spun out as an organization in 2019 after securing our first prospects. Marcello and I pushed the pause button on our educational careers and constructed a group to rebuild Apromore from the bottom up as a cloud-native SaaS product. As Chief Product Officer, I now lead our product imaginative and prescient, bringing collectively analysis, innovation, and enterprise wants to assist organizations unlock worth via course of intelligence.

How does course of intelligence act as a grounding mechanism to make sure autonomous brokers function successfully inside complicated workflows?

Process intelligence gives the contextual spine that autonomous brokers must act with precision. Without understanding the “as-is” and “to-be” processes, AI can simply as simply reinforce inefficiencies, propagate dangers and even break processes. 
Apromore, for instance, integrates course of mining with AI to ship predictive and prescriptive insights that inform brokers about possible outcomes and compliance dangers—enabling really adaptive, goal-aligned automation throughout the enterprise. It ensures that each AI-triggered motion is backed by correct, contextual information and aligned with enterprise guidelines, threat controls and compliance obligations.

What dangers do organizations face when deploying AI with out integrating course of intelligence, and the way can these be mitigated?

Deploying AI in isolation usually leads to blind automation, the place duties are sometimes executed effectively however not essentially successfully. This can result in elevated compliance violations, SLA breaches, or bottlenecks merely being shifted downstream. The dangers embody regulatory penalties, reputational harm, and operational disruption. Mitigation lies in embedding course of intelligence into each stage of AI deployment: from discovery and design to monitoring and governance.
Think of a mortgage origination course of: an AI agent might automate approvals based mostly on predefined guidelines, however with out understanding upstream dependencies or downstream dangers, it’d approve an incomplete or non-compliant software. With course of intelligence, nonetheless, the agent sees the complete image. It can assess the sequence and circumstances of each step, acknowledge violations in real-time and set off escalations or corrective actions. Platforms like Apromore present the type of embedded operational consciousness, auditability, and simulation capabilities required to deploy AI responsibly and sustainably.

As AI matures, how ought to leaders evolve their automation methods and enterprise architectures to maximise enterprise worth?

It may be very tempting to deploy AI to automate particular person duties. This results in fast wins. However, to ship sustainable long-term worth, leaders should channel AI into end-to-end course of optimization and orchestration. This includes embedding AI inside a data-driven enterprise structure—the place course of mining, simulation, and monitoring feed into clever orchestration layers. Apromore permits this shift via predictive and prescriptive capabilities that inform each tactical and operational choices. Leaders ought to concentrate on modular architectures that assist adaptability and combine course of intelligence as a core functionality to align AI efforts with strategic enterprise outcomes.

In what methods can course of intelligence improve operational resilience amid provide chain shocks, regulatory adjustments, and expertise shortages?

Process intelligence acts as an early warning and response system. By repeatedly monitoring key processes, Apromore helps organizations detect deviations, simulate “what-if” eventualities, and assess management effectiveness in actual time. For instance, in a provide chain disruption, predictive insights can flag weak subprocesses whereas simulations assist leaders assess different routes or useful resource allocations. In occasions of expertise shortages, it will possibly determine automation alternatives or talent mismatches. Ultimately, course of intelligence fosters agility and knowledgeable decision-making below stress.

Why is optimizing end-to-end processes extra impactful than merely automating particular person duties, and the way can organizations shift their focus accordingly?

Task-level automation delivers incremental beneficial properties however usually misses systemic inefficiencies. True transformation occurs when organizations optimize processes from begin to end—eliminating rework, guaranteeing compliance, and aligning outcomes with KPIs. Apromore helps organizations obtain this by revealing the entire course of panorama, together with bottlenecks, deviations, and hidden dependencies. By making these insights accessible via no-code instruments and intuitive dashboards, we empower enterprise groups to steer optimization initiatives—not simply IT.

How does course of intelligence allow real-time governance, steady auditing, and compliance monitoring at scale?

Apromore’s Compliance Center illustrates how real-time governance is feasible. It connects on to reside occasion information, making use of compliance guidelines repeatedly to detect violations as they occur. With options like key management testing, close to real-time dashboards, and predictive alerts, organizations achieve the flexibility to audit repeatedly fairly than periodically. This proactive posture not solely reduces threat however permits compliance groups to shift from reactive firefighting to strategic oversight.

What position does data-driven governance supported by course of intelligence play in enhancing threat administration and organizational transparency?

Data-driven governance ensures that choices are based mostly on factual course of information fairly than assumptions. Apromore hyperlinks controls on to processes, enabling clear analysis of rule effectiveness, management gaps, and compliance well being. It additionally makes it simpler to hint decision-making logic for regulatory functions. This degree of transparency builds belief throughout inner stakeholders and regulators whereas enabling threat groups to concentrate on systemic points fairly than remoted incidents.

Looking ahead, how can organizations finest put together to leverage course of intelligence as a strategic lever alongside autonomous AI over the following a number of years?

To totally understand the synergy between course of intelligence and autonomous AI, organizations should spend money on foundational capabilities now—similar to automated course of discovery, simulation, and KPI-based monitoring. Apromore’s roadmap displays this imaginative and prescient, advancing towards a future the place AI doesn’t simply react, however anticipates and optimizes based mostly on context. Leaders ought to develop a Center of Excellence to scale course of intelligence, guarantee information high quality pipelines, and foster collaboration between enterprise, threat, and know-how groups.

What key recommendation would you give to organizations simply starting to combine course of intelligence with autonomous AI to make sure profitable and sustainable outcomes?

Start with readability on the issue you’re fixing. Choose a high-impact course of and use course of intelligence to know its dynamics earlier than layering in AI. Establish cross-functional possession early and make sure that enterprise, IT, and compliance champions are aligned internally. Use platforms like Apromore to pilot predictive monitoring or compliance automation, then scale with confidence. The secret’s to deal with course of intelligence not as an afterthought to AI, however as a prerequisite for protected, scalable, and strategic automation. AI brokers with out course of intelligence are automation with out understanding — quick, however blind. Success will go to those that pair the pace and effectivity that AI brokers deliver with the transparency, effectiveness and management that course of intelligence provides.

Prof. Marlon Dumas is Chief Product Officer & Co-Founder of Apromore and professor of Information Systems on the University of Tartu. For the previous twenty years, he’s delivered enterprise course of administration and course of mining coaching and consultancy to 50+ organizations worldwide. As a analysis group chief, he executed R&D initiatives funded by the European Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the US Army Research Lab, and multinational firms together with SAP, Microsoft, and Swedbank. His analysis has led to 250+ scientific articles, 10 US and EU patents, and a preferred textbook on enterprise course of administration utilized in 400+ universities.

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