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There is a lot of hype and a lot of promise surrounding AI and what it can bring to an enterprise. For enterprise software vendor OpenText, moving beyond the hype to be able to actually demonstrate the value of AI is now an everyday mission.
Today, OpenText announced its latest set of platform updates with the Cloud Editions (CE) 24.4 release. OpenText has an expansive portfolio of enterprise software that include content management, DevOps, messaging, database and security. The OpenText software portfolio also includes enterprise software gained from the $6 billion 2023 acquisition of MicroFocus, which includes the Vertica database and Autonomy IDOL platform. A year ago, the OpenText Aviator technology debuted as part of the Cloud Editions (CE) 23.4 release, providing integrated generative AI capabilities to parts of the OpenText portfolio.
With the new update OpenText is providing more Aviator capabilities with deeper integrations as well as AI agent functionality across its portfolio. The company’s expanded AI portfolio, now includes 15 products supported by 102 autonomous agents. The overall goal isn’t to deploy AI for AI’s sake but rather to deliver measurable efficiency gains for enterprise customers.
“The biggest ask from customers, I can tell you, it’s almost 95% of the customers I’ve talked to in the past six to eight months have asked for one thing, show me the return on investment,” Muhi Majzoub, EVP and Chief Product Officer at OpenText, told VentureBeat.
How OpenText is demonstrating the ROI of enterprise AI
In order to help demonstrate the potential value and return on investment from an AI deployment, OpenText has rolled out a program it calls – Earn Your Wings.
Majzoub said that the program allows organizations to test OpenText Aviator technology in a controlled environment before committing to a full deployment. The program is a 30-day proof of concept exercise. During this 30-day period, OpenText’s AI experts work closely with the enterprise to deploy a model in the organization’s preferred environment, whether it’s a private cloud, on-premises, or in the OpenText cloud. OpenText guarantees that the model is trained solely on the customer’s data, ensuring the relevance and accuracy of the AI-powered insights.
By the end of the 30-day period, the customer can evaluate the tangible benefits of the Aviator platform, such as improved efficiency, faster response times and enhanced productivity. Majzoub said that this hands-on experience allows enterprises to clearly demonstrate the ROI of their AI investments, addressing a critical concern and paving the way for broader adoption.
At the OpenText World 2024 event this week, Majzoub said that he will be joined on the keynote stage by numerous customers including German automaker BMW, that have benefited from the Aviator AI capabilities.
Majzoub also highlighted the work his company has been doing with global life sciences vendor Catalent, which uses OpenText’s life sciences solution for manufacturing and quality testing. He noted that Catalent might have over a million documents in a clinical trial procedure. That volume of data is not something humans can realistically sift through in a reasonable amount of time, without a lot of people and time.
“The Aviator can sift through those and identify the 20 that a doctor should go through in detail,” Majzoub said.
Expanding the Aviator AI portfolio
At the heart of OpenText’s AI strategy is the continued expansion of its Aviator platform. The company is announcing several new Aviator-powered products and enhancements that showcase the breadth and depth of its AI capabilities.
One of the notable additions is the Aviator for XDR (Extended Detection and Response), which Majzoub described as a new platform for managed service providers (MSPs) in the security space.
“It sifts through log files for security that comes from tools like CrowdStrike, LogRhythm, SentinelOne, or it could come from our own ArcSight platform,” he explained. “It sifts through all of these and identifies for you either internal anomalies or external anomalies.”
In the content management domain, OpenText is showcasing the integration of Aviator into its internal “Ollie.ai” platform, where the company stores all of its own documents. The Aviator is being used to assist sales teams in generating RFP responses, as well as to support technical analysts in providing faster and more accurate resolutions to customer queries.
Majzoub also highlighted the use of Aviator in OpenText’s DevSecOps platform, where the AI agent is being used to automatically document code, freeing up technical writers to focus on creating more engaging user documentation and training materials.
Where OpenText is bringing agentic AI to improve enterprise ROI
A key component of OpenText’s growing AI capabilities is the integration of agentic AI into the Aviator platform. The AI agents are integrated into OpenText solutions, providing specialized capabilities tailored to the needs of different industries and use cases.
“In every business unit, the agents have different meanings and different use cases,” Majzoub said.
For example, in the security domain, he said that the agents can be embedded into facial recognition and license plate identification systems to assist law enforcement agencies. In the content management space, the agents can analyze large document repositories, summarizing key information and highlighting critical insights that would be difficult for human analysts to uncover. In the supply chain domain, Majzoub said that the AI agents can map transactions and data flows between different enterprise systems, providing visibility and transparency into complex global supply chains.
How OpenText aims to differentiate in a crowded enterprise AI market
In the enterprise software space, every vendor today has some degree of generative AI.
How OpenText is aiming to differentiate is in several different ways. The platform across the OpenText portfolio, supports multi-cloud deployments. Majzoub also emphasized that OpenText is commonly used alongside other enterprise software and has multiple levels of integrations and partnerships.
“The partnerships we have developed with great companies like SAP, Microsoft and Google, allows us to embed our platform in these solutions like no other vendor can deliver today,” Majzoub claimed.
With SAP in particular, Majzoub noted that while SAP is a complex and big platform, OpenText enables a zero copy data capability. That means that data can stay secure in one location and still be used by different applications securely.
“Your data is in one place, protected and secure, this is one of the reasons why the top 15 western world governments trust us to secure some of their biggest secrets in our platform,” Majzoub said. “This is one of the reasons why in every industry you give me, I’ll give you dozens and dozens of customers who have trusted OpenText for 10,15 or 20 years, and continue to move with us.”