For enterprises, the next phase of automation is becoming less about automating an isolated task and more about coordinating entire business processes across people, applications and AI systems.

That shift is at the center of Forrester’s latest assessment of the digital process automation (DPA) market, where Newgen Software has been named among the report’s “Notable Vendors.” The Digital Process Automation Software Landscape, Q3 2026, authored by Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst Craig Le Clair, provides an overview of 39 vendors operating in the category.

Forrester defines DPA platforms as technologies that develop process applications using advanced programming principles, including modeling, orchestration, dynamic case management and AI-led support.

The report identifies what it calls an “automation imperative,” driven in part by rising expectations around artificial intelligence. According to the research cited by Forrester, 54% of automation decision-makers say their organizations need to focus more heavily on end-to-end automation rather than workflow and task automation alone.

That change has significant implications for enterprise MarTech, customer operations and broader digital infrastructure. A workflow that automates a single approval step may deliver incremental efficiency. An intelligent orchestration platform, by comparison, aims to coordinate multiple systems, decisions and interactions as business conditions change.

Agentic Automation Moves Into the DPA Conversation

Forrester identifies agentic execution as the primary trend shaping digital process automation. The concept involves AI agents creating and adapting work patterns based on context and changing conditions instead of relying exclusively on predefined workflows.

That puts DPA increasingly close to the broader enterprise AI conversation.

Platforms from vendors such as Microsoft, Salesforce and other enterprise software providers are also incorporating AI agents into business processes, raising the competitive bar for specialized automation platforms. The distinction is increasingly shifting from whether a platform can automate a process to how effectively it can orchestrate AI-driven decisions across existing systems.

The challenge is implementation.

Forrester points to the difficulty of moving AI-enabled automation projects from pilots into production. Multisystem integration gaps, failures in human-machine interaction and regulatory compliance requirements can all become obstacles when enterprises attempt to scale.

For regulated organizations, these issues are particularly important. Automation cannot operate in isolation from governance, auditability and existing enterprise architecture.

Where Newgen Fits

Forrester's Landscape positions Newgen across North America, EMEA and APAC, with an industry focus that includes financial services and insurance, government and public-sector organizations, and healthcare.

Those markets share several characteristics that make process orchestration particularly demanding: complex case management, large volumes of documentation, legacy systems and regulatory oversight.

Newgen also reports supporting three deployment models tracked in the Landscape: hosted or private SaaS, multitenant SaaS and on-premises deployment.

That flexibility can be significant for organizations that cannot simply move every workflow into a multitenant cloud environment. Financial institutions, healthcare organizations and government agencies often have data-residency, security, compliance or legacy-integration requirements that make deployment architecture part of the purchasing decision.

The company also identified three extended use cases as strategic areas of focus in the report: AI agent industry outcomes, customer self-service and document automation.

Those use cases connect DPA with several adjacent areas of enterprise technology. Document automation, for example, can feed structured information into downstream processes, while customer self-service increasingly depends on AI agents that can access information and execute actions rather than simply answer questions.

DPA Faces Competition From Adaptive Process Orchestration

The competitive landscape may become more complicated as a newer category emerges.

Forrester identifies adaptive process orchestration (APO) as the “top disruptor” to DPA. APO aims to challenge conventional orchestration approaches by using AI agents and natural-language instructions to create process logic.

That development could eventually blur the boundaries between DPA and APO.

Traditional workflow design typically requires organizations to explicitly model the sequence of activities, decisions and exceptions. Agent-driven orchestration introduces the possibility of describing desired outcomes in natural language and allowing AI systems to determine portions of the execution path.

For enterprise buyers, that does not necessarily make traditional DPA obsolete. Instead, it introduces another architectural consideration.

Companies selecting an automation platform today may need to assess not only current workflow capabilities but also how the platform will accommodate increasingly adaptive, AI-driven process models over the next several years.

Why Enterprise Marketing Teams Should Care

Although DPA is often associated with back-office automation, its impact increasingly reaches customer-facing operations.

Marketing organizations depend on processes that cross CRM platforms, customer data systems, content repositories, analytics platforms and sales workflows. A customer-service interaction can also trigger marketing, sales or retention activities, making orchestration relevant across the customer lifecycle.

This is where DPA platforms can complement broader enterprise MarTech stacks rather than compete directly with systems such as Salesforce or Adobe.

The value lies in connecting processes across those systems.

For example, an AI agent could identify a customer request, retrieve supporting documents, initiate an approval process, route an exception to an employee and update the relevant enterprise system. The objective is not simply automation; it is coordinated execution across the technology stack.

Newgen's recognition in Forrester's Landscape therefore comes at a time when enterprises are reconsidering how workflow automation, AI agents and process orchestration should fit together.

The larger market question is whether DPA platforms can make that transition without creating another layer of complexity.

Market Landscape

The DPA market is entering a period of convergence. Traditional workflow automation, intelligent document processing, AI agents, business process management and enterprise orchestration are increasingly overlapping.

Forrester's identification of agentic execution as the major market trend suggests that vendors will increasingly compete on their ability to manage dynamic processes rather than simply execute predefined sequences.

The emergence of adaptive process orchestration adds another layer of competition. As natural-language process design and autonomous execution become more capable, enterprise buyers may increasingly evaluate platforms based on how well they combine deterministic controls with adaptive AI behavior.

For Newgen, its emphasis on regulated industries and multiple deployment models provides a specific market position. Organizations in banking, insurance, healthcare and government may value governance and deployment flexibility alongside AI capabilities.

Strategic Outlook

The next stage of enterprise automation will likely be defined by orchestration rather than isolated automation.

DPA vendors will need to demonstrate that AI agents can operate within controlled enterprise processes while maintaining integration, governance and human oversight. At the same time, APO vendors will pressure established platforms to rethink how workflows are designed and executed.

For enterprise buyers, the strategic question is becoming broader: not simply which platform automates today's processes, but which architecture can connect applications, data, AI agents and human decisions as operating models evolve.

Top Insights

• Newgen Software's Forrester recognition highlights the shift from task automation toward AI-enabled process orchestration across complex enterprise environments and regulated industries.
• Agentic execution is becoming central to DPA as enterprises seek automation systems capable of adapting processes based on context and changing conditions.
• Newgen's SaaS and on-premises deployment options could appeal to regulated organizations balancing AI modernization with governance and infrastructure requirements.
• Adaptive process orchestration is emerging as a competitive disruptor, potentially blurring boundaries between conventional DPA platforms and AI-native automation technologies.
• Enterprise marketing teams can benefit when DPA connects CRM, customer data, content and service processes instead of automating individual workflows in isolation.

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