By Cathy Rose A. Garcia, Editor-in-Chief
DENVER, Colorado — All enterprise applications will soon have to be reimagined amid the artificial intelligence (AI) explosion, according to the chief executive officer (CEO) of integration platform vendor Boomi.
“Remember when we would say, ‘oh, GenAI (generative AI) or new forms of potential consciousness, that’s like 30, 50 years away?’ But is it? I believe it’s not. I believe that there is a moment coming when we will be surrounded by AI,” Boomi CEO Steve Lucas said in his keynote speech at Boomi World here last May 8.
“It is just a matter of time. And I do not believe it is decades. I believe it is measured in single-digit years.”
AI dominated the conversations at Boomi World, an event that gathered customers, partners and members of the Boomi community for two days (May 8-9) here in Denver.
“Everything that you know will be reimagined. What was science fiction is now just science. All enterprise applications will be rebuilt to reason. The only enterprise applications that will matter five years from now are the ones that can reason,” Mr. Lucas said.
Boomi and other companies, he noted, are now moving very quickly to invent new technologies that can embrace AI.
“Boomi will leverage AI to help you do what you do today, wrangle the apps, the databases, and the APIs (application programming interfaces) that you need to work through. We will do that. But we’re also going to help you build the future. And we will not lose sight of who you are, what you need Boomi to be, that powerful integration and automation platform,” Mr. Lucas said.
Boomi unveiled its vision for the future, with a focus on integration and automation, API management, and data management, amid the emergence of the AI economy.
Mr. Lucas noted how the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) has a crucial role in improving speed, agility, and effectiveness across business operations.
“Connectivity remains a critical challenge for almost every organization. The chief culprit is digital fragmentation, a by-product of digital shifts that, paradoxically, lead to digital silos and disjointed technical architectures that leave the average enterprise now juggling over 364 applications and numerous API gateways,” he said.
AI needs reliable, secure, and current data, Mr. Lucas said, but most of the data is “fragmented, difficult to govern, and not securely managed.”
“What companies urgently need is a unified, enterprise-scale platform that not only bridges APIs, applications, data, and AI models, but also accelerates digital transformation.”
At the event, Boomi launched a next-generation API management service, Boomi Data Hub and Agent Garden as part of its enterprise platform.
“The AI economy requires next-generation API management (APIM) that accounts for a fragmented APIM landscape and can handle the demands of enterprise-grade scalability and security that AI workloads place on APIM solutions,” Boomi Chief Technology Officer Matt McLarty said.
To address this issue, Boomi acquired APIIDA’s federated API management business and assets from Cloud Software Group.
AI AGENTSBoomi also introduced an AI agent framework, “a set of integration and no-code development capabilities that enable business and IT users to run AI agents built by Boomi or Boomi partners, and to build and run their own AI agents to solve pressing integration and automation requirements.”
“You will be able to build agents that integrate directly with Boomi, hydrate them, ground them, train them in your organization and objectives,” Mr. Lucas said.
He demonstrated one of the first third-party AI agents called Boomi FinTalk powered by Vianai Systems on Boomi GPT.
With Boomi FinTalk, the AI agent can tap sources of financial data within the system and database. Users can then ask questions through a natural language interface as a way to analyze financial data and trends in real time.
“I believe that the combination of Boomi’s integration platform and Vianai’s human-centered AI is this new foundation on which enterprises can bring the power of generative AI to help their customers in a trusted, safe, human-centered way,” Vishal Sikka, founder and CEO of Vianai Systems, said via video during Boomi World.
Boomi also launched the Boomi Data Hub, described as a “data foundation for operational, analytical, and AI workloads.”
“With the Boomi Enterprise Platform, we’re giving customers the foundation they need for connecting and managing all their data, and for accelerating AI and API development. Using Boomi, customers can say goodbye to the digital fragmentation that’s been undermining their digital transformation efforts, and finally get the comprehensive visibility, control, and automation they need,” Mr. Lucas said.
Boomi, a global software as a service company, has over 20,000 customers and a network of 800 partners around the world.
