The thirty-second episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual, it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. It's Matt and Alan this month for a Salesforce-heavy episode, discussing their acquisition of Apromore, some of the thoughts from the pair sparked by the recent 2025 edition of the Dreamforce conference, and wrapping up some of the fall tech conference trends.

In this month’s episode:

Topic 1: That’s Apromore!

First up, Matt and Alan discuss Salesforce's recent acquisition of process analysis vendor Apromore, reminding themselves that Salesforce was an investor in the company (as well as there being a co-selling partnership). As is pointed out, our pair had both thought that there was a good fit for an acquisition (and had said so), but also got into the details of what using such a platform means practically (hint, it's not magic and needs process skills to operate if effectively, but it's a potentially huge on-ramp for Agentforce). They then go on to point to other business application ecosystems where similar investments have been made (and Matt acknowledges that he'd forgotten about SAP somehow when writing the analysis of the deal). Finally, there is some pointing at Deep Analysis's "Work Intelligence" research as a way of better understanding how all this might fit together.

Topic 2: Agents of Dreamforce

The big annual Salesforce Dreamforce conference took place recently, and whilst Matt watched from home in the UK, Alan was on the ground in San Francisco. They discuss how Salesforce is a bellwether vendor in the business application market, and whilst there was a host of product announcements, it was the changing messaging around Agentforce that got them most intrigued. Matt's product and adoption-focused blog post and Alan's one from the conference floor are discussed, with the general opinion being that it's much harder to deploy agents that were being made apparent 12 months ago, and the messaging is starting to reflect the steps required to get on track.

Topic 3: Fall Trends

Finally, Alan's got a couple of thematic trends to discuss from his travels at a bunch of business application conferences this fall/autumn and briefly discusses them; firstly, the underwhelming response from attendees to announcements and - if you ask them - the audience is hot for IDP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEd5UHaeNCs

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 10

Work Intelligence Market Analysis 2025-2030 - our full market analysis of the Work Intelligence marketplace, including process analysis.
Work Intelligence: Improving Processes by Balancing Human Intelligence and AI - our initial 2022 report on Work Intelligence as a concept, which you can download for free.
Salesforce acquires Apromore to give Agentforce a process analysis on-ramp - deal anal

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The thirty-first episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual, it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. Dan is back on with Matt this month for an IDP-heavy episode, discussing the latest Deep Analysis MMI Report on IDP, another batch of Vendor Analysis Reports, and an AI-generated incident involving pizza, a sofa, and a wheelchair.

In this month’s episode:

Topic 1: New MMI on IDP

There's a brand new MMI (Market Momentum Index) report out on IDP, which Deep Analysis has collaborated on with AIIM. As Dan was the lead analyst on this MMI, he talked Matt through just a small selection of the details about the market revealed in the study. These include how many customers are actively working on IDP projects, where those customers are storing documents ,and just how much paper is involved (and it's increasing in volume).

Topic 2: Vendor Research Updates

Dan and Matt discuss 4 more of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports that were recently published for subscribers. This time, as Dan is on the show, he talks about the new reports on Roots, Retarus, Affinda, as well as a big update on Hyperscience.

Topic 3: Dan Has Issues

Finally, Dan has been infuriated by AI invading his personal life during the summer, leading to it being recommended to him that he should order a sofa and a wheelchair to go with his pizza. Here is his therapy session with Matt discussing his issues about it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yeb5vYR9Dk

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 9

Market Momentum Index: Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) Survey 2025 can be downloaded from AIIM for free.
If you're new to IDP, Dan's annual IDP Market Report, "Intelligent Document Processing Market Analysis 2025-2028: IDP at the Crossroads," might also be of interest.
Matt wrote a blog post a couple of months back looking at data across all 4 of the MMI reports that we've published so far, which contains links to all of them (and some interesting stuff on AI adoption)
Here are the latest updated vendor profiles (or VVs as we still call them internally).
...and here's the link to the whole catalog on those profiles (that you have access to read if you're a subscriber).
"No Cure for the Summertime Blues"; Dan's blog post where he outlines some of his issues and more....

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The thirtieth episode of the podcast that you know and love as "We Love Ugly Data!" is out; available in audio form everywhere you get your podcasts from and additionally in video form via YouTube (which we've embedded below). As usual, it’s three topics in (just a touch over) 30 minutes, and the show notes are included just below the embedded video. Alan is on with Matt this month, another batch of Vendor Analysis Reports, the big news coming out of OpenText, and our latest musings on what AI agents mean to the future of operating an organization. In this month’s episode:
Topic 1: Vendor Research Updates

First up this month, Alan and Matt discuss 3 more of the latest Vendor Analysis Reports that were recently published for subscribers. Alan talks about the new report on Hyland (via his featured South Philly grown tomato crop), while Matt talks through the debut reports on LatticeFlow and Fisent.

Topic 2: Changes at OpenText On the 11th of August, OpenText announced some significant changes in its leadership; here Alan and Matt discuss the announcement itself, Alan's initial blog on the subject, and what we think are the likely outcomes for the company and its products. We do get close to saying "only time will tell" (which we've banned previously), but there are also some insights that you might find useful if you want to get deeper into the product. Dan's also added his opinion from an IDP perspective, too.

Topic 3: Pragmatism and Solutionism? For the last topic this month, Alan and Matt discuss a couple of recent blog posts that they've written. Firstly, Matt's written "Agents, Autonomy and Automation", which discusses how maybe autonomy isn't exactly what enterprises need from agents, but instead something that can work, like a typical worker, within traditional boundaries or role and responsibilities. Alan's written one of his own, "The Seductive Danger of Solutionistic Narratives in AI," and the pair discuss how the agent thing is playing out right now in practical terms and where the transformation might be unfolding.

Related Links for Series 4 Episode 8. Here are the latest updated vendor profiles (or VVs as we still call them internally). ...and here's the link to the whole catalog on those profiles (that you have access to read if you're a subscriber). Alan's thoughts just after the OpenText leadership announcement ...and here's Dan IDP specific thoughts on the OpenText situation too. Matt's "Agents, Autonomy and Automation" blog post talks about the division of agents into generalized and focused groups. Alan's blog post "The Seductive Danger of Solutionistic Narratives in AI".

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