Dr. John Bates
In 2025, global content creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes, or 180 trillion gigabytes. In paper terms, that’s the equivalent of 122 million trillion pages. Even if everyone on Earth were reviewing documents nonstop, they’d still have billions of documents each to process — a task that is clearly impossible. Intelligent automation is clearly needed.
Industrial manufacturer SEW-EURODRIVE uses a form of sentient document technology to automate over 5,000 emailed custom orders daily — by intelligently understanding hundreds of thousands of emails with various attachments.
And then there’s the content we already have in businesses. We’re great at generating and storing content but struggle to make it truly work for us. An estimated 54% of business information is “dark” — inaccessible or unused (consider those countless hours of Zoom recordings). This information overload contributes significantly to the U.S.’s $3.1 trillion annual revenue loss due to poor data quality.
But this data problem is set to change. In the near future, data will transform from inert to responsive, proactively engaging with us to determine how it can be utilized. In such a world, 180 zettabytes won’t be a challenge — instead, it will be an opportunity that drives streamlined operations and enhanced customer service. Bring it on!
The rise of sentient business forms
This transformation is driven by what we call the dawn of the “sentient document” — a revolutionary leap comparable to the printing press in its impact on document automation. These next-generation, highly responsive documents promise to redefine how enterprises access and utilize their business content, unlocking insights from work patterns and corporate knowledge embedded within.
The possibilities are limitless. The convergence of AR, VR, agentic AI, generative AI, and advanced analytics opens up exciting productivity breakthroughs. Picture a scenario where you visually navigate your entire company’s information library, effortlessly breaking language barriers — asking a question in French about a Chinese RFP and receiving an instant, accurate response in either language.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have significantly simplified the way we engage with large banks of knowledge. The logical progression is for enterprise documents to carry a built-in understanding of what they are and what they contain. This would allow us to “converse” with them directly, while they act as proactive “agents,” continuously analyzing, cross-referencing incoming information, and uncovering valuable insights — essentially transforming into intelligent navigators for your digital ecosystem.
Interactions with customers will become radically more streamlined
Imagine documents so context-aware and communicative that they become effectively sentient, capable of articulating their own insights and content. Instead of relying on AI-augmented search tools like Copilot or Google, we’ll soon be able to ask direct business questions of all our organizational content and receive intelligent, synthesized answers. As this capability evolves, the strain on professionals managing overflowing inboxes could ease dramatically, while customer interactions across various contexts become far more efficient and seamless.
Even for traditionally email-driven tasks — such as requests for information or actions on invoices, contracts, or applications — the rise of document sentience transforms the process. Documents will autonomously identify and categorize themselves, organizing into appropriate folders or triggering automated workflows based on their type and priority. Imagine clinicians using voice commands to have clinical reports automatically prioritize cases based on cancer risk; lawyers querying their case files to detect contradictions or conflicts with new agreements; or insurance agents simply asking a file about its contents, linked policies, and the validity of a claim—all without needing to manually sift through data.
Documents stop being “flat” and are now amazingly smart
Sound like a distant prospect? You might be surprised to learn that the sentient document is already here. Take SEW-EURODRIVE, a global leader in industrial automation, for example. They are already using a form of sentient document technology to automate over 5,000 custom orders daily. Finding those orders involves intelligently understanding hundreds of thousands of emails with various attachments.
Orders are just one example of what might be in an email. With more than 90 embedded content apps, each handling a different content scenario, SEW can streamline everything from generating CAD designs based on custom orders to scheduling manufacturing and delivery to customers — all without the need for human intervention.
The company invited Forrester Consulting to evaluate their systems, and the analysts found that by automating document management and processes, SEW-EURODRIVE has achieved a remarkable 336% return on investment, with savings exceeding €17 million (US$17l.51 million) over three years.
While these results are impressive, the rise of effective document sentience is not an isolated case. For instance, at European insurer DEVK, every employee can instantly see which cases of a policyholder are still open and access them directly. This has significantly improved transparency, enabling the company to provide customers with the information they need much faster.
Assigning thousands of cust0mer emails daily
That means the 4,000 emails DEVK gets a day from customers can be immediately assigned to the agent responsible for the case via document intelligence, with a new processor assignment tool to identify, based on skill, deputy rules and capacities, which employee should take on a case.
Based on this information, the case and all related documents are automatically forwarded to the team member digital workbaskets, producing time savings that directly translate to better customer service, something DEVK places a very high value on.
These real-world examples support my central idea: In 2025, we will witness a transformative shift where documents stop being “flat” and evolve into dynamic, intelligent entities that are far more useful and interactive and helpful to your business and its customers.
About the author:
Dr. John Bates is the CEO of content services provider SER Group and a non-executive director of business management software and services firm SAGE. Prior to SER, he was the CEO of Eggplant, a pioneer of AI-powered software test automation (acquired by Keysight Technologies), CEO of Plat.One, an IoT apps platform (acquired by SAP) and the founder/president of Apama, a streaming analytics provider (acquired by Software AG). He has also served as a senior executive in several public software companies, including Software AG and Progress Software. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Cambridge University.
Sign up
Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 B2B News, published 4x/week. It covers technology and business trends in the growing B2B ecommerce industry. Contact Mark Brohan, senior vice president of B2B and Market Research, at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @markbrohan. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube.
Favorite