Mohammad Azarijafari, Luisa Mich, and Michele Missikoff propose a radical rethink of business process design:

We propose a method in which BPs are not defined by fixed workflows but rather by business goals, information objects, and autonomous agents responsible for achieving them. This represents a shift from a task-based model to an agent-based goal-driven model, in which workflows emerge from agent interactions rather than being predesigned.

Business processes today are like sheet music for an orchestra that never changes tempo. Every note prescribed, every pause planned, every flourish predetermined. Perfect for predictable performances, terrible for jazz.

The industrial world built itself on this predictability. Workflows as assembly lines of the mind. But markets don't move like assembly lines anymore.

This paper flips the script entirely. Instead of designing the how, you design the what. Instead of choreographing every step, you set the destination and let autonomous agents figure out the dance.

Think goal-driven rather than task-driven. You want to "Acquire Order" in your pizza business? An agent takes responsibility for making that happen. It might take the order via phone, app, or carrier pigeon. The method emerges from the situation.

The magic happens when agents collaborate. One agent can't fulfill a goal alone? It recruits others. The system becomes antifragile - it doesn't just survive unexpected situations, it improvises through them.

This isn't just workflow automation with fancier language. It's a fundamental architectural shift from brittle choreography to adaptive orchestration.

The autonomy of agentic systems raises crucial questions about safety, ethics, accountability, and control.

That's the uncomfortable question: if workflows emerge from agent interactions rather than human design, who's really in control?

We're not just automating tasks anymore - we're delegating entire decision-making processes to systems that might actually understand what they're doing.

How do you maintain accountability in a system where the process itself is an emergent property? And perhaps more fundamentally: how do you design governance that can evolve alongside the intelligence it's meant to constrain?