Dumas et al. 2023 — AI-Augmented Business Process Management Systems: A Research Manifesto

The ABPMS manifesto. Direct conceptual predecessor to the APM Manifesto. Authored by 14 researchers spanning the BPM, AI, and process-mining communities and published in ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (Jan 2023). The arXiv preprint dates to Jan 2022 (v1), revised through Nov 2022 (v4).

Authors (14)

entities/marlon-dumas · entities/fabiana-fournier · entities/lior-limonad · entities/andrea-marrella · entities/marco-montali · entities/jana-rebecca-rehse · Rafael Accorsi · entities/diego-calvanese · entities/giuseppe-de-giacomo · Dirk Fahland · Avigdor Gal · entities/marcello-la-rosa · Hagen Völzer · Ingo Weber.

Core thesis

An ABPMS is a process-aware information system whose execution is augmented by trustworthy AI, with the goal of making business processes:

Adaptable — unlike classical BPMSs (where ad-hoc instance changes require human intervention), an ABPMS may trigger adaptations autonomously.
Proactive — anticipates change and continuously self-improves.
Explainable — agents/system articulate the rationale behind decisions.
Context-sensitive — adapts to varying contextual conditions.

These four characteristics are the canonical ABPMS quartet that the APM Manifesto (2026) later extends and reframes through the agentic lens.

Structure (from abstract)

Defines the ABPMS concept.
Outlines the process lifecycle within an ABPMS (a re-framing of concepts/bpm-lifecycle in light of AI augmentation).
Discusses the four core characteristics.
Derives a set of research challenges to realise systems with these characteristics.

Why this matters here

As predecessor to APM

The 2026 APM Manifesto explicitly positions itself as the agent-centric successor to ABPMS:

"In previous works, operational specifications have been called frames as well [23]. Indeed, they can be considered a sort of operational frame. In APM systems 'frames' focus, however, on the normative specification."

ABPMS introduced the framing idea but left agent-centricity implicit. APM makes it explicit. Mapping between the two manifestos:

ABPMS characteristic (2023)	APM capability (2026)
Adaptable	concepts/self-modification (adaptation aspect)
Proactive	concepts/self-modification (evolution aspect) + concepts/perceive-reason-act
Explainable	concepts/explainability-apm (first-class)
Context-sensitive	concepts/framed-autonomy + concepts/process-awareness

The four ABPMS characteristics roughly map onto the four APM capabilities, with the addition of concepts/conversational-actionability as a new dimension in APM not foregrounded in ABPMS.

As terminological anchor

"Frame" in ABPMS = operational frame in APM terminology. Reading both manifestos in sequence is the cleanest way to understand the APM-specific use of "framing" and how it differs from prior BPM/ABPMS usage.

As authorial bridge

Most ABPMS authors recur in the APM Manifesto (Dumas, Fournier, Limonad, Marrella, Montali, Calvanese, De Giacomo, La Rosa). The community continuity is itself a signal that APM is positioned as the next-generation successor, not a competing paradigm.

Connections

Concepts: concepts/agentic-bpm · concepts/process-aware-information-system · concepts/explainability-apm · concepts/self-modification · concepts/framed-autonomy · concepts/bpm-lifecycle

Authors (in this wiki): entities/marlon-dumas · entities/fabiana-fournier · entities/lior-limonad · entities/andrea-marrella · entities/marco-montali · entities/jana-rebecca-rehse · entities/diego-calvanese · entities/giuseppe-de-giacomo · entities/marcello-la-rosa

Related sources: sources/2026-calvanese-agentic-bpm-manifesto (successor) · sources/2018-dumas-fundamentals-of-bpm (textbook foundation) · sources/2023-chapela-campa-augmented-process-execution (parallel vision) · sources/2024-kampik-large-process-models (LLM-era follow-up) · sources/2026-dumas-agentic-bpms-pyramid (A-BPMS keynote — cites ref [6] and extends the three-property ABPMS definition) · sources/2025-fettke-explainable-autonomous-business-processes (XABPs — sharpens the explainable characteristic) · sources/2025-vu-practitioner-perspectives-agent-governance (practitioner-facing companion)

Cited by

sources/2026-calvanese-agentic-bpm-manifesto — direct successor manifesto.
sources/2026-dumas-agentic-bpms-pyramid (ref [6]) — extends the ABPMS definition with three A-BPMS properties.
sources/2025-fettke-explainable-autonomous-business-processes — operationalises the explainable ABPMS characteristic.
sources/2025-vu-practitioner-perspectives-agent-governance (ref [6]) — situates ABPM within the "BPM for Agents" stream succeeding ABPMS.

Open follow-ups

Deep-dive re-read to catalogue the specific research challenges enumerated in the paper by name (currently only mapped at the four-characteristic level).
Five co-authors not yet entitised: Rafael Accorsi, Dirk Fahland (TU/e — process mining), Avigdor Gal (Technion — data integration & ML), Hagen Völzer (IBM/TU Vienna), Ingo Weber (TUM — ABPMS, blockchain). Create entity stubs if they recur in future ingests.