What is BPM?
Business process management (BPM) is the discipline of modeling, running, monitoring and improving a company's business processes, and also the name for the software suites that execute those process models.
In more detail
As a discipline, BPM asks who does each step, in what order, under which rules and how long it takes. As software, a BPM suite runs models of those processes, assigns tasks to people, calls other systems and records every step for reporting. Camunda and Pega are examples of platforms in this space. BPM tools suit long, rule-heavy, regulated processes where you need an explicit model and auditable state, such as loan origination or claims handling. They are heavier than a workflow tool and take real modeling effort. For a five-step approval, an integration platform is usually enough. AI agents now sit inside BPM flows to handle judgment steps, such as reading an incoming document, while the BPM engine keeps ownership of the sequence and the approvals.
Example
An insurer models claim handling in a BPM suite: intake, coverage check, assessor assignment, approval limits and payout. An extraction agent reads the claim form at intake, and the suite routes anything above an adjuster's limit to a manager.