Paper
Agentic Business Process Management: A Research Manifesto
Authors
Diego Calvanese, Angelo Casciani, Giuseppe De Giacomo, Marlon Dumas, Fabiana Fournier, Timotheus Kampik, Emanuele La Malfa, Lior Limonad, Andrea Marrella, Andreas Metzger, Marco Montali, Daniel Amyot, Peter Fettke, Artem Polyvyanyy, Stefanie Rinderle-Ma, Sebastian Sardiña, Niek Tax, Barbara Weber
Abstract
This paper presents a manifesto that articulates the conceptual foundations of Agentic Business Process Management (APM), an extension of Business Process Management (BPM) for governing autonomous agents executing processes in organizations. From a management perspective, APM represents a paradigm shift from the traditional process view of the business process, driven by the realization of process awareness and an agent-oriented abstraction, where software and human agents act as primary functional entities that perceive, reason, and act within explicit process frames. This perspective marks a shift from traditional, automation-oriented BPM toward systems in which autonomy is constrained, aligned, and made operational through process awareness. We introduce the core abstractions and architectural elements required to realize APM systems and elaborate on four key capabilities that such APM agents must support: framed autonomy, explainability, conversational actionability, and self-modification. These capabilities jointly ensure that agents' goals are aligned with organizational goals and that agents behave in a framed yet proactive manner in pursuing those goals. We discuss the extent to which the capabilities can be realized and identify research challenges whose resolution requires further advances in BPM, AI, and multi-agent systems. The manifesto thus serves as a roadmap for bridging these communities and for guiding the development of APM systems in practice.
Metadata
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Raw Data (Debug)
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"raw_xml": "<entry>\n <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18916v1</id>\n <title>Agentic Business Process Management: A Research Manifesto</title>\n <updated>2026-03-19T13:52:17Z</updated>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18916v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.18916v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n <summary>This paper presents a manifesto that articulates the conceptual foundations of Agentic Business Process Management (APM), an extension of Business Process Management (BPM) for governing autonomous agents executing processes in organizations. From a management perspective, APM represents a paradigm shift from the traditional process view of the business process, driven by the realization of process awareness and an agent-oriented abstraction, where software and human agents act as primary functional entities that perceive, reason, and act within explicit process frames. This perspective marks a shift from traditional, automation-oriented BPM toward systems in which autonomy is constrained, aligned, and made operational through process awareness.\n We introduce the core abstractions and architectural elements required to realize APM systems and elaborate on four key capabilities that such APM agents must support: framed autonomy, explainability, conversational actionability, and self-modification. These capabilities jointly ensure that agents' goals are aligned with organizational goals and that agents behave in a framed yet proactive manner in pursuing those goals. We discuss the extent to which the capabilities can be realized and identify research challenges whose resolution requires further advances in BPM, AI, and multi-agent systems. The manifesto thus serves as a roadmap for bridging these communities and for guiding the development of APM systems in practice.</summary>\n <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='cs.AI'/>\n <published>2026-03-19T13:52:17Z</published>\n <arxiv:comment>35 pages, 1 figure</arxiv:comment>\n <arxiv:primary_category term='cs.AI'/>\n <author>\n <name>Diego Calvanese</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Angelo Casciani</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Giuseppe De Giacomo</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Marlon Dumas</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Fabiana Fournier</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Timotheus Kampik</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Emanuele La Malfa</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Lior Limonad</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Andrea Marrella</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Andreas Metzger</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Marco Montali</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Daniel Amyot</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Peter Fettke</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Artem Polyvyanyy</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Stefanie Rinderle-Ma</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Sebastian Sardiña</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Niek Tax</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Barbara Weber</name>\n </author>\n </entry>"
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