Exploring new AI tools in business: What is the newest technology in AI?

Everybody is talking about AI, and almost everybody is using it. Some 99% of the business leaders surveyed already deploy some form of AI in their organization, according to the 2025 Process Optimization Report.

So what types of AI applications are they using, and what are the new AI tools available for businesses looking to drive real value from their AI investment? Let’s start by looking at agentic AI, the latest addition to the AI toolbox, before moving onto more established technologies like generative AI.

Agentic AI is the latest AI development

Looking for truly autonomous AI solutions that can reason through a problem, devise a solution, and then implement that recommendation? Meet AI agents (or agentic AI).

These AI solutions are capable of complex problem-solving and perform actions sequentially. That means you can give an AI agent an outcome, it will calculate the steps to achieve it, then move from one to the next once it’s satisfied each task has been successfully completed.

This multi-step reasoning makes AI agents particularly useful for the intricate, nuanced world of business process improvement. They can automate workflows, and intelligently troubleshoot and fix process issues – or, better still, catch them before they happen. AI agents can be custom-built for each business’s needs, using agentic AI development platforms such as:

• IBM watsonx Orchestrate: Offers reusable, prebuilt agents or a low-code builder for custom agents that can automate and orchestrate recurring tasks, characterized by their particularly strong integration with IBM Cloud.
• Amazon Bedrock: A highly flexible, framework- and model-agnostic agentic AI development platform with secure AWS service/API access.
• Microsoft Copilot Studio: Another no-code platform, but best for building AI agents that are embedded within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Power BI connectors and other enterprise data sources.
• CrewAI: One for the more advanced AI developers out there, this open-source, code-first platform allows businesses to flexibly build domain-specific, multi-agent systems, integrated with any API.

• What’s the difference between AI assistants, copilots, and agents? We’ve got a short, fun e-book for that.

Generative AI is already the norm

The term generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI or GenAI) describes deep learning models or algorithms that can be used to create new content like images, text, videos, audio, and code. Generative AI tools tend to come in the form of chatbots, powered by large language models (LLMs). LLMs apply this deep learning to vast data sets to understand, summarize, and generate new content.

GenAI has accelerated AI adoption across the globe and has quickly become synonymous with general AI use. You’ll find it’s increasingly embedded in everyday business systems. Ever been typing an email and seen a pop-up volunteering to write it for you or predict the rest of your sentence? Ever noticed customer emails being automatically flagged for urgency in your CRM? That’s the magic of GenAI at work.

In fact, 71% businesses already use generative AI tools in at least one function (up from 65% in 2024), according to McKinsey’s latest global annual survey on the state of AI. And 70% have seen a revenue increase in business units from GenAI use. However, there’s still a way to go on the road to maximizing value from AI, as only 1% of company executives describe their GenAI rollouts as “mature.”

Generative AI chatbots

The model that’s caused the biggest stir is undoubtedly ChatGPT, from artificial intelligence research organization OpenAI. It took all of five days for ChatGPT to amass one million users. As a comparison, it took X (or Twitter, as it was first known) two years to reach the same number of users.

OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot is continually updated and the latest version (at time of writing) is GPT-5, which boasts a more complex coding model, faster answers to user questions, and fewer of those pesky AI hallucinations. ChatGPT-5 is also multimodal, which means it can interpret and reason using non-text inputs like audio and images. But ChatGPT is far from the only generative AI chatbot. Here are some of the other famous faces:

Google Gemini

Initially an “experimental conversational AI service” called Google Bard, powered by an LLM, Bard was relaunched as Gemini in 2024. This new version is less chatbot, more full-AI-platform with agentic capabilities and integrations with Google Workspace. The model’s ability to process tokens is also unrivaled, with a 1 million-token scope meaning it can process vast amounts of information more efficiently. As a multimodal chatbot like ChatGPT, it’s great for analyzing visuals and text at the same time.

Microsoft Copilot

Previously known as Bing Chat, this large language model-based chatbot is a built-in extension for Microsoft Edge, and has recently integrated ChatGPT-5. As you’d expect, it has deep integrations with Microsoft apps and the 365 suite. Microsoft Copilot excels at working with business documents, spreadsheets, and meeting summaries.

Claude 4

Created by Anthropic, Claude 4 is an open-source AI agent built through Constitutional AI principles and intended for broad implementation across platforms. Claude 4 leads on reasoning benchmarks and nuanced text understanding, with tiered options for speed vs. depth.

Command R+

Developed by Cohere, Command R+ is designed for grounded answers (i.e. those based on information or documents you’ve already provided), enterprise compliance, and multilingual text-heavy workflows.

• Need an explainer on the difference between AI copilots, assistants, and agents? Check out our guide.

Enterprise tools for generative AI

Various solutions empower enterprises to experiment with integrating generative AI workflows into their business operations. Vertex AI, for example, is available in Google Cloud, and provides models and fully managed tools that allow users to prototype, customize, integrate, and deploy generative AI into multiple applications. Alternatives include IBM Watson Studio and Azure Machine Learning.

A wide variety of AI tools and capabilities combine to enable generative AI, including both conversational AI and content creation.

Tools for conversational AI

As the name suggests, conversational AI is a type of AI that simulates human conversation. It uses natural language processing (NLP) to process human-created text, extracting data insights and meaning. NLP is the technology that allows humans to ‘talk’ to AI, usually through a chatbot or copilot, and engage in meaningful conversation. When it’s integrated with speech recognition technology, it’s even possible for humans to engage vocally with AI (like the multimodal chatbots mentioned earlier).

NLP is a type of neural network that enables data to be processed in a layered structure of interconnected nodes or neurons that is inspired by the human brain. Much like a human brain, neural networks improve continuously by learning from their mistakes.

In addition to being used to power chatbots or virtual assistants, and to extract data from written documents, NLP is also used for sentiment analysis. It enables AI to understand the human emotions behind text-based content and is useful for analyzing, for example, the sentiment of social media comments or reviews.

Conversational AI platforms currently in use include IBM Watson Assistant, Kore.ai, Avaamo.ai, Amazon Lex, Oracle Digital Assistant, Microsoft Bot Framework, Cognigy.AI, and Yellow.ai.

AI copilots

You can think of copilots as more advanced chatbots. They use the same conversational interface but are more geared toward assisting with tasks, rather than simply answering questions. Here are some examples of what you can use the most common AI copilots to do:

Microsoft Copilot

This AI tool is designed to boost productivity by summarizing Outlook emails, drafting Word documents, and creating analysis in Excel spreadsheets, courtesy of its integrations with Microsoft 365.

Salesforce Einstein GPT

If you’re looking to extract more insights from your Salesforce CRM data, you’re in luck as this copilot is engineered to provide context-aware analytics and even generate emails or customer service responses.

Adobe Firefly

Need support with generating or editing creative content? Adobe Firefly can quickly generate images, videos, and animations using stock libraries. It can come in handy for marketing teams, as an example, who are creating social media or branded imagery. (More on AI image creation later.)

Celonis Process Copilots

These generative AI companions use conversational AI to make interacting with Celonis (and, therefore, your business process data) as seamless and intuitive as conversing with a colleague. Because they use NLP, they can infer what users want even if their queries aren’t perfect. For instance, they can determine the slice of data they’re asking for even if users don’t specify which filter to use.

• Interested in building your own process copilots or custom AI solutions? Find out how Celonis’ AI development helps ensure your solutions are fed with crucial context about how your business runs.

AI tools for content creation

Content creation is one of the most popular business use cases for AI in general, and particularly generative AI. Before we take a look at some of the newest AI tools for content generation, it’s worth mentioning that all AI-powered content creation tools should be used with strict human supervision to ensure content is accurate and commercially safe.

AI image creation

AI image generators are increasingly used by businesses to create on-brand photos or illustrations. Using text instructions, these solutions can craft images from scratch, for use across various marketing channels including advertising, social media, blogs, and websites.

AI tools can also be used to easily edit existing images – perhaps enhancing their appearance, changing the background, or resizing images without losing quality. This is particularly useful for creating high-quality, varied product images without the need for costly and time-consuming photo shoots.

Magic Studio is an AI-powered tool that includes an image generator, but also enables existing photos and illustrations to be enhanced. Other content creator tools that use AI to generate images from text include:

• DALL·E 3: Integrated with ChatGPT, DALL·E supports inpainting and style control.
• Midjourney V6: Supports more realistic rendering, prompt interactivity, and fine-tuning for brands.
• Stable Diffusion XL: Allows more detailed branded asset creation and on-prem deployment for enterprise privacy. DreamStudio is the web interface version.
• Generative AI by Getty Images: AI-powered image creation trained exclusively on Getty Images’ licensed content, offering a greater degree of proprietary protection.
• Microsoft Designer: An AI-powered graphic design app that helps people create or edit graphics for social media posts, emails, and websites.

AI video creation

As with image creation, AI-powered video creation tools help businesses to quickly and easily generate useful video content for sales and marketing, as well as for other purposes such as training. Text-to-video functionality means video content can be created from scratch.

Alternatively AI can be used to generate elements of a video, such as an avatar or voiceover, to be combined with existing footage. Or it can be used to edit existing video content.

AI tools for generating video content include DeepBrain AI, Descript, HeyGen, Veed.io, InVideo and Elai.io.

AI text creation

Using AI to generate written content can save businesses a lot of time. But the risk of AI hallucinations means any written content (or any content for that matter) should be carefully fact-checked to ensure accuracy. For that reason, some businesses prefer to use AI tools for creating shorter pieces of written content, such as product descriptions or social posts, instead of longer articles or e-books.

AI tools for business can also be used to edit existing text-based content and adapt it for use in different ways. Notion AI, for example, can transform existing written content by adapting its tone, fixing spelling and grammar errors, adding variety by finding synonyms, or translating text into another language. In addition to Notion AI, AI text creation tools include Jasper, Writesonic, and Copy.ai.

AI reporting tools

AI tools for business intelligence can process greater volumes of data, more quickly, and more accurately than humans. Assuming the data they are fed is impartial, they can deliver objective insights too.

AI is effective at discovering meaningful patterns and trends in complex data structures, which can help businesses make better strategic decisions grounded in data. Many enterprises are already using machine learning in business intelligence (BI) to deliver meaningful insights. Many BI tools, such as Microsoft Power BI, Polymer, Sisense, and Tableau, offer AI capabilities. Microsoft Power BI users can also take advantage of the Celonis Connector for Power BI, which supercharges Microsoft’s business reporting platform with process intelligence.

Enabling new AI tools with process intelligence

Innovative new AI tools and technologies are emerging all the time. But the results businesses get from these technologies will only ever be as good as the information that feeds them. To make AI work efficiently, enterprises need to ensure AI has the context of their business, and that means feeding it process intelligence.

Get in touch to find out how Celonis can help you make AI tools and technologies work for your enterprise, with intelligence that knows how your business flows.