Orchestration: The Bridge from AI Agents to Agentic Workflows

The internet is full of impressive AI agent demos these days, showcasing capabilities like helping kids understand math concepts, reading and drafting emails, or even producing entire movie scenes. These demos are fun to watch, and it's exciting to see how quickly the industry is pushing the boundaries of what's possible. But as a business leader, you may be wondering: when will these innovations add value to my operations?

Bridging the Gap from Cool Tech to Business Value

The answer lies in distinguishing between individual AI capabilities—such as reading emails or analyzing reports—and a true digital worker in business functions like purchasing, IT, legal, or supply chain. The function that bridges that gap is orchestration.

In a recent conversation with an automation strategist, I discussed the ability of AI agents to creatively plan their actions, finding a way to fulfill an assignment. He wisely pointed out that while this is useful for specific tasks, especially in research, most business processes are well-defined from the start, often based on best practices informed by decades of industry experience. For now, AI agents aren’t needed to rethink how to perform cash application or balance the books at a period close. Instead, enterprise solutions rely on an orchestration layer that applies industry-standard principles and assigns tasks to the right agents—whether they are AI-driven or human.

How Orchestration Drives Intelligent Automation

Orchestration enables companies to combine the power of intelligent workflows with human oversight and other systems. For instance, legacy workflows are being reimagined with agentic orchestration that can self-heal and manage critical processes end-to-end with digital workers. This evolution is reshaping how enterprises function.

Take a purchasing department in retail as an example. This department deals with document exchanges between suppliers—orders, confirmations, and advance shipping notices. AI agents can read and understand these documents, classifying them and extracting data associated with the correct tasks. However, to run their business seamlessly, this retailer needs to orchestrate these capabilities into a business process workflow. No company wants an AI agent to plan such workflows from scratch every time. These processes are well-known, and the solution should tie industry best practices with AI agents capable of handling individual tasks autonomously. I encountered this case in real life recently, and the solution uses UiPath workflows, integrating technologies like document understanding, GenAI activities, API integrations to email and storage platforms, and human input for reinforcement learning and approvals. UiPath‘s orchestrator makes it possible to wrap all that tech into an enterprise automation platform with the governance and maintainability needed in an enterprise context.

Agentic Automation: Where Innovation Meets Operations

It’s no surprise that platforms like UiPath, which used RPA as a gateway for AI products to the enterprise years ago, remain a powerful starting point for agentic automation. These platforms enable business logic and workflows to be modeled, with tasks assigned to RPA workflows, AI agents, or human workers as necessary. This is where the innovation coming from the various AI labs meets the practical needs of enterprise operations.

Orchestration is the key that turns AI into a valuable asset for modern business processes, ensuring that the future of work isn't just automated, but intelligently designed and managed.