Principal Analyst
Bernhard’s research supports CIOs and technology leaders with their broader transformation challenges. His thought leadership provides guidance on how to manage technology-driven business models and how to drive sustainable technology innovation. Bernhard is a hands-on expert in both emerging and mature technologies such as AI, automation, IoT, process intelligence, and process orchestration. Leveraging his business process and enterprise architecture expertise, Bernhard’s research takes a holistic look at business and operations automation and serves clients in these areas of responsibility.
AI agents are generating enormous excitement, but separating genuine progress from inflated promises requires a clear view of what's actually being implemented and what benefits organizations are realistically seeing. Forrester analyst Bernhard Schaffrik cuts through the noise to ground the conversation in what's real. Bernhard will place agentic AI in the broader arc of automation — from early scripting to the emerging vision of autonomous operations — then zero in on the critical question for enterprise teams today: how do you practically leverage AI agents within process automation? The answer lies in Adaptive Process Orchestration (APO): an approach that flexes to variation, blends deterministic and probabilistic actions, and connects any required endpoint. Bernhard will walk through the reference architecture that brings APO to life, covering the orchestration engine, design tooling, data and process intelligence foundations, and the guardrails required to make it enterprise-safe.
