Business Orchestration: from automating tasks to orchestrating entire operations

In partnership with UiPath, Smarthis discusses why integrating automated tasks is no longer enough, and what changes when people, systems, data, and AI agents start operating as a single coordinated operation.

After years of investing in automation, many companies have hit a plateau. They have dozens of bots, data platforms, and, more recently, AI agents, but operating in isolation, without a shared coordination layer. The result is a technologically mature environment that still remains operationally fragmented, with little visibility into the full journey and manual dependencies between systems that should be talking to each other.

This is the problem that Business Orchestration aims to solve: the coordination of people, systems, data, automations, and AI agents across an end-to-end business process, treating these capabilities as parts of a single operation, with governance and visibility over its execution.

According to Rodrigo Ferreira, CTO and founder of Smarthis, this shift redefines the very benchmark for automation maturity:

"For a long time, the market measured success by the number of bots deployed. Now that logic changes completely. The focus shifts from automating isolated tasks to coordinating the entire company's operation, connecting artificial intelligence, data, people, and systems into a single journey."

From isolated automations to an operating strategy: the role of BOAT

This shift in logic has a name: BOAT (Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies), a concept that brings together the technologies and capabilities used to automate, integrate, and orchestrate business processes end to end. Business Orchestration is the logic of coordination; BOAT is the set of technologies that puts it into practice, combining different forms of automation and AI depending on the stage of the process, with human validation points wherever needed.

For Mauricio Grohs, Regional Vice President at UiPath, this evolution is a direct response to the advance of artificial intelligence within operations:

"We are entering a new phase of enterprise automation. Beyond automating specific activities, organizations need to coordinate people, systems, and intelligent agents in an integrated way, with governance and visibility. BOAT represents this evolution by turning automation and artificial intelligence into an operating strategy capable of delivering results at scale."

The urgency around this topic grows with the advance of Agentic AI. An AI agent can interpret information, execute tasks, and make certain decisions. But a corporate operation rarely depends on a single isolated agent: it involves enterprise systems, data platforms, business rules, and different levels of human involvement. That's why deploying AI agents without a coordination structure doesn't transform an operation. It simply shifts the automation problem onto AI.

What changes on the agenda of technology and operations leaders

According to Gartner, by 2030 CIO success will depend less on owning technology delivery and more on orchestrating it across the enterprise. This shift is already starting to shape how organizations evaluate their automation and AI initiatives. For IT leaders, this discussion has concrete implications. The ability to coordinate when an agent should act, what information it can access, which systems it should trigger, and when a person needs to step in becomes a governance requirement, not a technical detail. This integration is what allows AI agents to move from isolated experiments to applications at scale, with traceability and human intervention when needed.

As Rodrigo Ferreira puts it:

"When different technologies work in an integrated way, the company stops merely automating tasks and starts coordinating entire operations. That's what allows gains to scale, intelligence over processes to expand, and organizations to become more agile and better prepared to bring in AI agents safely and with governance."

Smarthis and UiPath: orchestrating this transition

Smarthis is a Brazilian technology consultancy specializing in artificial intelligence, AI agents, data, automation, and process orchestration. In strategic partnership with UiPath, a global leader in enterprise automation, the company supports businesses in the transition from isolated automations to coordinated operations, from identifying and prioritizing opportunities to implementation, governance, and continuous evolution of solutions.

In this context, Business Orchestration represents a shift in perspective. The goal is no longer just automating more tasks, but connecting and coordinating the entire operation better.

In the news

This discussion around Business Orchestration, BOAT, and the role of AI agents in operations has been covered by more than 15 outlets specializing in technology, innovation, and business, including Infor Channel, Startupi, Crypto ID, and Jornal Empresas & Negócios.

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If your company has already automated processes and is starting to test AI agents, but still lacks clarity on how to coordinate these initiatives with governance and an operational view, now is the time to talk to those who already help organizations make this transition. Talk to our specialists and learn how to structure your Business Orchestration layer.