Nintex has introduced two innovative tools designed for creating and managing AI agents within business workflows. As organizations strive to integrate AI into their operations, there remains a critical need for maintaining oversight and ensuring compliance.
The newly launched tools, Nintex Agent Designer and Nintex Orchestration, are now accessible within Nintex CE for a select group of customers. This release aims to assist organizations that are experimenting with agent-based automation but find it challenging to integrate these tools into their daily processes and governance frameworks.
Businesses are rapidly assessing the potential of AI agents to interpret data and execute actions. However, many teams have discovered that deploying these agents in isolation can lead to new risks, particularly when they operate outside existing process controls, approval mechanisms, and audit trails.
Nintex positions these new tools as a solution to seamlessly incorporate AI agents and rules-based workflow logic within a cohesive process framework. This ensures that human decision-making remains visible and that structured controls are applied where necessary.
Blended Execution
The objective of these tools is to unify two distinct styles of automation: deterministic rules and structured workflows alongside non-deterministic agent behavior, which utilizes contextual information for decision-making.
According to IDC Research Vice President Arnal Dayaratna, buyer expectations are evolving. He remarked, “Organizations no longer wish to replace structured processes with fully autonomous systems; instead, they seek platforms that support both deterministic and agent-driven approaches within a single orchestration framework.”
He emphasized that this blended model enhances governance and operational standards. “A mixed approach allows organizations to apply AI where judgment and interpretation are beneficial while retaining structured workflow controls where precision and compliance are critical. The ability to coordinate both models within business workflows is essential for scaling AI adoption,” he explained.
What Changes
Nintex Orchestration introduces a phase-based model for process execution, dividing large, end-to-end processes into manageable phases. Workflows can dynamically transition between these phases depending on the context, allowing for repetition, escalation, or rerouting of tasks.
Agent Designer serves as a means to integrate AI agents within these phases, ensuring that agents, human participants, and core systems function in a coordinated operational flow. It also provides a centralized platform for designing the movement of work between automation and human oversight.
Nintex describes this integrated model as a way to utilize AI where interpretation and judgment add significant value while maintaining conditional control for higher-risk activities. Additionally, it underscores the importance of visibility across long-duration processes that may span multiple days or weeks and involve various teams, systems, and decision points.
Agent Patterns
Agent Designer features adaptive AI agents and includes supervisor and multi-agent patterns. Nintex asserts that these agents can plan and carry out complex actions, retrieve contextual information to guide decision-making, and escalate issues to humans when deterministic control is necessary.
Orchestration also accommodates various automation components such as RPA, document processing, and system connectors. This aligns with how many organizations have historically built their automation infrastructures and wish to have AI agents complement existing tools rather than replacing them.
A central challenge for operations leaders is effectively managing exceptions. Agent-based systems may introduce variability in outcomes, especially when inputs are incomplete or when decisions must account for policies, risk tolerance, or regulatory stipulations. Nintex’s phase-based approach regards exceptions as a natural aspect of execution, managing them within the larger process lifecycle.
Governance Focus
Nintex’s Chief Product and Technology Officer, Niranjan Vijayaragavan, framed this release as a means to harmonize autonomy and control within a single design environment. “AI for contemporary business cannot be entirely agentic or entirely deterministic; it must encompass both,” he stated.
He linked this perspective to the need for oversight and compliance in operational settings. “Our vision for agentic business orchestration relies on enabling deterministic workflows and adaptive agents to operate within the same process framework, alongside human oversight. With Agent Designer and Orchestration, organizations can implement AI where judgment is advantageous while maintaining control where precision and compliance are paramount,” he noted.
Nintex further referred to its AI UNLESS report, which revealed that 64 percent of business leaders are either embedding or consolidating AI into broader automation strategies. This trend aims to establish unified platforms to coordinate people, systems, and AI agents. The company posits that effective orchestration becomes increasingly vital as AI evolves from isolated tests into essential operational processes, where governance protocols and system integration often become more stringent.
Partner Reaction
Nintex partner AiGS – Ai Global Solutions described the launch as a pivotal transition in the incorporation of AI within workflow automation products.
“This is a game-changer. Nintex Agent Designer represents the future of workflow automation, merging intelligence with governance in a groundbreaking manner,” said Kevin Schall, CEO of AiGS – Ai Global Solutions. “With features like supervisor agents, Nintex is enabling organizations to implement advanced AI-driven automation while maintaining the oversight and trust that users expect from agentic AI systems.”
Currently, Agent Designer and Orchestration are available in beta to a select group of Nintex CE customers, with plans for more extensive availability as testing continues.
