Agentic BPM Pyramid

Four-layer classification of data-driven BPM capabilities introduced by Dumas, Milani & Chapela-Campa 2026 (sources/2026-dumas-agentic-bpms-pyramid, Fig. 1), adapted from the four-level pyramid in Chapela-Campa & Dumas 2023 by replacing the apex layer Augmented Process Execution with Agentic BPM.

The four layers (bottom to top)

Layer	Focus	Representative techniques
1. Descriptive Process Analytics	Current state of the process	Automated concepts/process-discovery, concepts/conformance-checking, performance mining, variant analysis
2. Predictive Process Analytics	Estimated future state	What-if digital process twins (process-level), concepts/predictive-process-monitoring (case-level and process-level)
3. Prescriptive Process Optimization	Recommended actions to affect outcomes	Automated process optimization (tactical), concepts/prescriptive-process-monitoring (operational)
4. Agentic BPM (apex)	Autonomous management & optimisation	Automated Systems (fully predetermined), Autonomous Systems (AI-agent orchestrated, human-as-supervisor)

Each layer builds on and requires the ones below it: agentic BPM is dependent on the process intelligence produced by the lower three layers.

Two axes crossing the pyramid

Operational — real-time, case-level recommendations and actions during running cases.
Tactical — weeks-to-months timeframe, informing process change decisions.

Both axes cross all four layers. Agentic BPM is not confined to operational use.

Relationship to predecessor pyramid

[[sources/2023-chapela-campa-augmented-process-execution|Chapela-Campa & Dumas (2023, ref [8] in Dumas et al. 2026)]] proposed a pyramid whose apex was Augmented Process Execution. The 2026 version replaces this with Agentic BPM, reflecting the paradigm shift from AI-augmented humans to AI-agent-orchestrated processes. The lower three layers are preserved.

Relationship to the APM Manifesto

The pyramid is architecturally orthogonal to the APM Manifesto's capability stack (framed autonomy → explainability → conversational actionability → self-modification). The manifesto enumerates what an APM agent must be capable of; the pyramid classifies the process-intelligence techniques on which any APM system rests. Both can coexist: an APM agent must exhibit the four capabilities and draw on the four pyramid layers to sense-reason-act on process data.

Fit within A-BPMS architecture

Within the five-layer A-BPMS architecture from the same paper, the pyramid techniques collectively constitute the process intelligence layer, sitting between the data layer (event logs, model repositories, decision logs) and the action / orchestration / conversational layers.

concepts/agentic-bpm · concepts/process-mining-spectrum · concepts/predictive-process-monitoring · concepts/prescriptive-process-monitoring · concepts/process-discovery · concepts/conformance-checking · concepts/business-process-simulation · concepts/abps-autonomy-levels