Celonis acquires American AI company Ikigai Labs and simultaneously expands its collaboration with Coupa. Additionally, the Munich-based decacorn introduces the “Celonis Context Model“, a new technology designed to provide AI systems with greater business context.
With these three measures, Celonis is pursuing a shared goal: AI applications should no longer merely analyze business processes, but increasingly control and optimize operational workflows independently.
Celonis has primarily been known for process mining to date. Using the software, companies analyze business processes based on enterprise data to identify inefficient workflows. In the future, the startup wants to significantly expand this approach to include forecasting, simulation, and AI-driven decision-making.
Celonis expands AI platform
With the acquisition of Ikigai Labs, Celonis gains additional expertise in machine learning, simulation, and forecasting modeling. According to Celonis, Ikigai Labs’ technology is based on research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As part of the acquisition, MIT is to become a shareholder of Celonis.
According to the company, Ikigai Labs already supported large enterprises in shortening planning and forecasting cycles in supply chains, among other areas. Additionally, Celonis receives exclusive rights to several patents licensed by MIT.
At the center of the new platform strategy is the so-called “Celonis Context Model”. According to the company, many AI systems currently lack the necessary operational context to realistically map business processes and make sound decisions. The new model is designed to close this gap by consolidating data from different enterprise systems and processing it in real time.
Carsten Thoma, President of Celonis, says:
“With Ikigai Labs, we’re expanding our platform: from transparency about how companies work today to the ability to understand how processes could work in the future.”
Partnership with Coupa expanded
One of the first applications of the new approach is being developed jointly with Coupa. The integration connects Coupa platform’s spend data with Celonis’ process intelligence technology. Procurement, finance, and supply chain teams will be better able to analyze and automate sourcing processes as a result. The solution will be available through the Coupa App Marketplace in the future.
According to the two companies, enterprises should be able to more quickly identify causes of value loss, inefficient workflows, or cash outflows. Additionally, Celonis and Coupa want to further automate processes such as invoice reconciliation, payment management, and procurement.
Coupa’s so-called Navi AI Agents receive additional business context from Celonis’ enterprise processes. AI agents should thereby better understand business processes and execute them more autonomously.
Dan Brown, Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Celonis, says:
“By connecting Celonis Process Intelligence with the Coupa platform, AI agents gain the operational context they need for effective autonomous work.”
Furthermore, Celonis is integrating its platform with other technology and AI providers such as AWS, Databricks, Oracle, and Microsoft.
When the acquisition of Ikigai Labs will be completed remains open. It is still subject to customary closing conditions. When asked by the editorial team, Celonis confirms that all approximately 40 employees of Ikigai Labs are to be taken over. The companies decline to comment on financial details of the acquisition.
