Agentic Automation and IDP: Building Trust and Precision into Business Workflows

Tech companies are doubling down on AI’s capability to make decisions. Giant brands like Microsoft and Meta have committed millions of dollars to crafting the technology. Startups are raising millions more to get into the market.

And it’s all because of a new wave in automation driven by advancements in artificial intelligence: agentic automation.

Agentic automation is AI that doesn’t just assist but makes choices and takes actions independently. When agentic automation is combined with intelligent document processing (IDP), for example, businesses can not only extract important data but decide what to do with the information and put it to work—all automatically. Let’s take a look at how these combined technologies work together to change the way businesses tackle complex business workflows.

What is agentic automation?

Agentic automation refers to the use of intelligent agents (software or systems) to automate tasks by combining multiple technologies—such as AI, machine learning, decision-making processes, and automation tools—to carry out tasks autonomously. The key idea is that these systems can take actions based on specific inputs, learn from experience, and improve over time without needing human intervention for every step.

Basically, these AI systems are designed to make choices, take action, and solve problems on their own. Unlike traditional automation that follows predefined rules and workflows, agentic automation can adapt to changing conditions and handle dynamic, unpredictable tasks autonomously.

Take the insurance claims processing workflow, for example. When a customer submits a claim, traditional automation would extract key information from the document for a human insurance agent, who would then pick up the workflow and use that data to make decisions.

Agentic AI goes a step further. After extracting the data, it analyzes the information autonomously and makes decisions based on predefined rules or learned patterns. For example, the agentic AI might double-check an insurance claim, automatically approve it, and calculate the payout—without needing human intervention.

Of course, humans would still need to manage complex cases, but the agentic AI would handle the bulk of the decision-making and manage tasks end-to-end. Employees would then be freed up from rote decision-making to focus on more interesting challenges.

Common applications for agentic automation

Agentic AI has the potential to reshape almost every business process, including basic functions such as scheduling and document management. But let’s first look at how agentic AI can be used in specific industries:

• Insurance: Agentic automation can streamline claims processing by autonomously analyzing submitted claims, extracting relevant data, and validating coverage. Straightforward claims are handled entirely by AI with the ability to approve payouts on its own.
• Healthcare: Tasks like patient triage can be streamlined by agentic automation that autonomously reviews each patient’s symptoms, studies their medical histories, then prioritizes cases based on urgency.
• Banking: Agentic automation can be used for fraud detection, risk assessment, and transaction monitoring. It can also make faster lending decisions by analyzing a customer's financial history—while reducing human bias to boot.
• Government: Processing applications, verifying applications, flagging discrepancies—and even issuing approvals or denials—can be done by agentic AI to speed public services like benefits processing and tax assessments.
• Customer experience: Agentic AI can not only provide basic information but also actively make decisions on common customer service issues, such as choosing to issue a refund or prioritizing requests and inquiries.

How agentic automation and IDP complement each other

Since up to 80% of business processes are driven by documents, combining agentic automation with intelligent document processing (IDP) can dramatically improve how business gets done.

Put simply, agentic AI adds decision-making abilities that are powered by the accurate data extraction completed by intelligent document processing. First, IDP automatically extracts and structures data from invoices, contracts, medical records, and other documents using AI techniques like optical character recognition (OCR) and natural language processing (NLP). The resulting data is accurate, high-quality, and ready for analysis. Then agentic automation steps in to autonomously make decisions and take action.

IDP empowers agentic AI to perform at its highest capacity. By providing reliable, robust, and trustworthy data, IDP enables agentic AI to make the best decisions for seamless end-to-end workflows.

Benefits of combining IDP with agentic automation

One of the deepest concerns about agentic automation is its potential to make unexpected or less-than-ideal decisions. That’s why experts recommend combining agentic AI with other technologies—such as intelligent document processing (IDP)—that add precision. Here’s a look at what IDP and agentic automation can accomplish in tandem:

• Enhanced reliability and accuracy: IDP is designed to extract data that is accurate, structured, and compliant—empowering agentic AI to make smarter, more reliable decisions and reducing the risks and errors posed by poor-quality data.
• Increased efficiency: IDP on its own automates the process of pulling process-ready data from even messy, unstructured documents. Agentic AI can then take that information and decide what to do with it, automating complex business processes from start to finish.
• Faster decision-making: Integrating IDP with agentic automation means data is quickly extracted, validated, and acted on, speeding business processes without requiring human experts to make routine decisions along the way.
• Cost savings: IDP already saves businesses time by automating repetitive tasks like extracting key information from documents. Add agentic AI, and the combination can automate decision-making tasks too, reducing operational costs and freeing up staff to focus on more innovative work.
• Scalability: A combination of IDP and agentic automation lets companies handle more customers, documents, and decisions easily, scaling up operations and output without adding more staff.

Strategies for integrating IDP and agentic automation

To combine agentic automation with intelligent document processing (IDP) successfully, start by optimizing your overall workflows. After all, you don’t want to go through the trouble of automating a process from end to end, only to discover that the process is duplicative and can be eliminated altogether.

Process intelligence tools can help you figure out what your entire workflow looks like, what inefficiencies exist, and where automation can have the biggest impact. Process intelligence is also extremely beneficial when scaling autonomous automation, as it can provide the business logic layer and monitoring of operations—providing some oversight over agents.

Once your processes have been optimized, you’re ready to select and integrate the new technologies. Pick technology partners who are established AI and automation providers respected in the industry. These partners will be the ones helping to reduce the risks of adopting new technologies and make the most out of your investment.

In addition, make sure the technologies you pick are purpose-built solutions designed specifically for the processes you’re trying to accomplish, not one-size-fits-all solutions that can compromise accuracy.

The future of agentic automation and IDP

Agentic automation is still a new technology, and we’re only starting to tap into its full potential. What we do know for certain is that business operations will keep on evolving with the evolution of both agentic automation and intelligent document processing (IDP).

In the future, we’re likely to see deeper integration between agentic automation and IDP across all aspects of business, from human resources to supply chain management. Expect more end-to-end automation that reduces silos by making data flow smoothly across systems, improving workflow efficiency.

We’ll see these technologies get smarter, too. After all, IDP with agentic automation can not only extract data but also analyze context and learn from previous actions. These tools will continuously adapt and improve based on real-world outcomes, evolving to make even more complex decisions in real time.

Sharpen the performance of agentic automation with ABBYY IDP

For many companies, the first challenge of integrating new technologies is figuring out where to start. ABBYY helps you take that first step. With more than 35 years of experience under our belt, we offer an intentional, customer-focused approach to eliminate guesswork in your automation strategy.

ABBYY’s intelligent document processing (IDP) is purpose-built to extract, classify, and process information from any business document to provide your organization with clean, reliable data. This, combined with agentic automation, means higher accuracy and fewer errors even as you boost efficiency by automating complex workflows.

Start exploring ABBYY Document AI technology and request a demo.