Digital Transformation Through Integration: Boomi's Vision for the Enterprise

Boomi CEO Steve Lucas shares his vision for the "self-driving enterprise," where AI agents orchestrate processes, reduce complexity, and build trust through human-centered integration.

At Boomi World 2025, a transformation is taking shape. Chairman and CEO Steve Lucas painted a vision of enterprise technology that contrasts sharply with the doom-laden proclamations dominating tech headlines. Rather than focusing on AI replacing humans, Boomi is championing what Lucas calls "the human element of AI-driven transformation." That’s also the title of his newly released book, which is generating buzz throughout the conference.

The Self-Driving Enterprise: An Evolution, Not a Revolution

"I think about this like self-driving cars," Lucas explained during a media session following his keynote. "We didn't get Waymo driving people around without drivers on day one. They all started with, 'Oh, well, it'll stay in the lane on the highway.' That was step one of the self-driving car."

This measured approach reflects Lucas's broader philosophy about enterprise AI adoption – a gradual evolution rather than an overnight revolution. While thought leaders like OpenAI's Sam Altman focus on the hypothetical "could," with dramatic scenarios of sweeping job displacement, Lucas centers his vision on the practical "should."

"There must be conversation and discourse on what role humans play in this," Lucas emphasized. "There's going to be a transition."

This transition is precisely what Boomi is positioning itself to orchestrate with its recently announced Agentstudio platform and Agent Control Tower, tools designed to help enterprises implement, manage, and govern AI agents across their digital ecosystems.

From 1,000 Steps to 10: The Promise of Agentic Processes

Lucas' vision centers on the shift from deterministic to agentic processes, a transformation that could reduce thousand-step workflows to mere dozens through AI-powered automation and orchestration.

"I believe agentic processes will be the dominant form of automation going forward," Lucas said. "We've been using it so long internally now that I look around and go, 'Why isn't that process agentic yet?'"

This internal adoption has yielded tangible results. During his keynote, Lucas highlighted a series of Boomi-built agents that have transformed everything from customer success management to expense reporting. One particularly revealing example is an expense approval agent that eliminates human involvement in routine approvals, learning from patterns to apply company policies automatically.

When asked about resistance to such automation, Lucas shared a personal anecdote about his experience as a Type 1 diabetic:

"Ten years ago, I treated my insulin by eating, guessing, drawing insulin out of the vial, injecting, and hoping for the best. Then technology gave me a sensor that I wear, a pump that gives me insulin, and my phone figures out the stuff in the middle. There were five minutes of emotion where I was thinking, 'Boy, it would be awful if my phone kills me.' But the past 10 years have been the best health years of my life, incredibly transformative, because I moved the emotion out of the way."

Moving past emotional resistance to embrace algorithmic intelligence where appropriate, this philosophy forms the foundation of what Lucas calls "the human element of AI-driven transformation."

Trust as the Currency of Transformation

Despite his enthusiasm for AI's potential, Lucas consistently returned to the theme of trust during his keynote and media session. "Change only happens at the speed of trust," he stated during his keynote presentation.

Boomi's Chief Product and Technology Officer, Ed Macosky, elaborated on this principle with a revealing example about the company's Customer Success Manager (CSM) agent. Initially designed to automate customer interactions, the project sparked internal concern about job replacement.

"There was some subtext of fear – 'are we replacing our CSMs?'" Macosky recalled. "I told the team, 'Why don't we reorient this? Think about it as supercharging our CSMs and helping make them more productive.' The whole project turned towards empowering CSMs, then marketing and sales got involved, and it worked. Then they got excited about it, and we started building momentum."

This "supercharging" approach, enhancing rather than replacing human capabilities, exemplifies what Lucas means by the human element of transformation. It's not about removing people from the equation but elevating their contribution by eliminating routine tasks.

A Repository of Intelligence

Looking ahead, Lucas painted a bold vision of where this path leads: "Is it a stretch two years from now that I, as a human, can say, 'Hey, AI that I'm talking to, I need to reduce expenses in my organization by $20 million a quarter. Go make it happen? I'm expressing my intent, and there's some swarm of AI agents that go and take that action. It's starting to not feel like a stretch."

Lucas explained that for such a future to work, enterprises would need "a central repository where a company is aware of all the AI agents in my company, where they're from, what they do, what action they could take." This vision extends Boomi's current Agent Control Tower concept into something more comprehensive, a directory of organizational intelligence that can be mobilized on demand.

"Lucas astutely reframes the AI narrative, emphasizing a collaborative 'human element' rather than outright replacement, which resonates with practical enterprise adoption strategies," said Mitch Ashley, VP and Practice Lead DevOps and Application Development at Futurum. "Boomi's focus on orchestrating this evolution with tools like Agentstudio and the Control Tower addresses the immediate need for governance and management of these emerging AI entities. This pragmatic vision, centered on building trust and incrementally transforming workflows, offers a path forward despite the hype surrounding AI's potential."

The Urgency of Action

Underlying Lucas's vision is a stark warning about competitive necessity. "Every company on the planet has this question before them: Will I be an AI-driven company or not? That is the question now to be defined," he stated.

"We want to be the great equalizer, the platform that levels the playing field. You may not be Walmart spending millions of dollars with closets full of people thinking this up 24/7, but you can do more than survive – you can thrive in this world. But if you wait, you will not be able to recover. The urgency is to go now."

This sentiment echoes themes from Lucas's "Digital Impact" book, which advocates for transformative integration that doesn't leave organizations or individuals behind. By focusing on practical applications rather than theoretical futures, Boomi is positioning itself as the bridge between today's complex enterprise landscapes and tomorrow's more fluidly orchestrated business processes.

As Lucas wrapped up the session, he returned to Boomi's north star: "How do we take complex things and make them simple? That has guided us for 20 years." In an era where technological complexity threatens to overwhelm many organizations, this mission of simplification through intelligent integration may prove to be Boomi's most compelling value proposition.