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As a technology that has been around for decades, workflow automation might finally have found its place
Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) and an industry standard from 2006, the Object Management Group’s Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) workflow automation looks set for a renaissance. Some 20 years on, BPMN is being used alongside agentic AI to deliver what the industry sees as adaptive process automation.
This was a hot topic at the CamundaCon 2026 conference in Amsterdam. During his presentation, Forrester principal analyst Bernhard Schaffrik showed a five-step evolution from basic scripting for workflow to a fully autonomous organisation. “Autonomy is only possible if you directly relate [the workflow] to what’s going on in real time, and your approval process is ideally autonomous,” he said.
Speaking to Computer Weekly about his experience of how workflow automation has evolved, James Fernandez, co-CEO of Fairlink, said: “I remember, and I was doing some stuff in logistics, which lends itself to process mapping.”
But, he recalls, the workflow tools of the time were basic mapping tools. “You could run models, but you couldn’t do anything more. As a 20-year-old, I was absolutely blown away that nobody was doing this properly,” he said.
Fairlink was established to tackle the exploitation of immigrant workers. It aims to provide transparency in recruitment and throughout the employment journey using three integrated platforms that work together to make recruitment safer and more accountable at every stage of the process.
It has worked with IT consulting firm Casci to develop these platforms, which provide governance and guardrails to connect jobseekers with employers, to reduce the risk of the workers being exploited.
“After 30-something years of having tried to do enterprise workflow, there’s convergence now, and I can talk in business language and bring together all facets of an organisation”
James Fernandez, Fairlink
Discussing the workflow engine required by Fairlink, Fernandez said: “For one of the first times in my career, I have very few people as opposed to thousands of people in the business. I have a small organisation, and we are focused on the business problem we have to solve.”
This frames the conversation Fairlink has around the software it needs for workflow orchestration and the use of AI, as well as if and when agentic AI should be used. “Having the combination of the right tools and the right humans is really important for us because we are dealing with humans, and we’re dealing with vulnerable humans who don’t know about the journey they’re going on,” he added.
In a demo at CamundaCon 2026, Casci and Fairlink showed how a migrant worker interacts directly with the system using WhatsApp and Instagram. “If you have ever seen migrant workers use WhatsApp, they won’t be texting. They’ll all be using voice notes,” said Fernandez.
As a result, he said the back-end system sends WhatsApp voice notes to workers communicating with Fairlink via Twilio. The demo showed a voice note conversation in Hindi, which was being used to generate a CV for the worker. All the coordination between the immigrant worker and the employer is handled via the Camunda workflow orchestration platform.
Modern workflow automation
Toby Cook, founder and chief technology officer at Casci, who previously worked at Deloitte’s public sector consulting practice, said the Fairlink software works in real time. “We are able to translate Hindi in real time and respond in a voice note, enabling someone to effectively have a conversation with Fairlink,” he said.
Behind the scenes, the software enables Fairlink to build the information required for that person.
Regarding workflow orchestration in modern enterprises, Cook observed that organisations no longer need to force unwieldy monolithic systems into configurations that become nearly impossible to support. The rise of the microservice-based architecture lends itself to a far more lightweight, horizontally scalable enterprise system that was not possible before.
“We’re in a world where systems are far more malleable, and you can externalise orchestration and bring in workflows, which is really driving the experience from a user perspective,” he said. This orchestration of workflows makes it possible to connect to and update multiple systems of record.
Fernandez believes the functionality available in a modern enterprise workflow engine is profound. “After 30-something years of having tried to do enterprise workflow, there’s convergence now, and I can talk in business language and bring together all facets of an organisation,” he said.
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