AI-Enabled Processes: The Age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

Business processes, i.e., a set of coordinated tasks and activities carried out manually/automatically to achieve a business objective or goal, are central to the operation of public and private enterprises. Modern processes are often highly complex, data-driven, and knowledge-intensive. In such processes, it is not sufficient to focus on data storage/analysis; and the knowledge workers will need to collect, understand, and relate the big data (from open, private, social, and IoT data islands) to process analysis. Today, the advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science can transform business processes in fundamental ways; by assisting knowledge workers in communicating analysis findings, supporting evidence, and making decisions. This tutorial gives an overview of services in organizations, businesses, and society. We introduce notions of Data Lake as a Service and Knowledge Lake as a Service and discuss their role in analyzing data-centric and knowledge-intensive processes in the age of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. We introduce the novel notion of AI-enabled Processes and discuss methods for building intelligent Data Lakes and Knowledge Lakes as the foundation for Process Automation and Cognitive Augmentation in Business Process Management. The tutorial also points out challenges and research opportunities.