Why AI fails without process intelligence
May 5, 2026
Hello friends. Enterprise AI is hitting a wall most teams cannot see. This episode of our podcast explains why process intelligence is the missing layer that maps how work happens before agents automate it. The lesson is clear: without that foundation, companies risk scaling inefficiency. Here’s a blueprint for better execution. Thank you to Deel for sponsoring this episode of The Deep View: Conversations. —Jason Hiner
Why AI fails without process intelligence
In this episode of The Deep View Conversations, we sit down with Alex Rinke, co-founder and co-CEO of Celonis, to unpack one of the most overlooked truths in enterprise AI.
Rinke and his co-founders started Celonis 15 years ago in Munich with just $15,000. What followed was a grind, including thousands of handwritten letters to land early customers, and a steady evolution from workflow simulations to what is now known as process intelligence.
Today, Celonis works with roughly half of the world’s 200 largest companies. Its platform acts like an MRI for the enterprise, creating a digital twin of how work actually happens across fragmented systems.
Rinke’s core argument is simple and provocative: there is no enterprise AI without process intelligence. Companies that deploy agents without understanding their underlying processes risk automating inefficiency at scale.
We also cover:
How Celonis re-engineered itself for the AI era
What the co-CEO model works like in practice, and why it can be a competitive advantage
How hiring is changing inside AI-native companies
The AI tools Rinke uses to run his own workflow
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