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FormAssembly Fully Rebuilds Its Platform, Expanding Process Automation with AI Agents

SiliconANGLEUpdated Nov 10 00:14

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FormAssembly announced that it completed a full platform rebuild in seven months, expanding from an online form tool to AI-driven business process automation, integrating form creation, workflows, integrations, and compliance management into a single no-code environment. The new platform introduces a conversational AI agent named Fai, which can generate forms, approval flows, and document requirements using natural language, and supports MCP to allow external AI agents to connect; the company says AI-assisted building can shorten development time from days or weeks to minutes. The platform primarily uses Anthropic's frontier models and has signed zero-retention agreements with Anthropic and OpenAI; the migration plan for existing customers is scheduled to begin in January next year.

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FormAssembly Inc., a provider of online data collection and workflow automation software, today announced a complete platform overhaul that expands its capabilities beyond building forms to automating complex business processes using artificial intelligence.

The new platform, which the company said took seven months to develop, combines form creation, workflow automation, integrations and compliance management in a single no-code environment.

It also introduces conversational AI agents that can collect information through natural language interactions and support for the Model Context Protocol, enabling external AI agents to interact with FormAssembly’s software.

The launch marks a significant expansion for the 20-year-old company, which has traditionally focused on helping organizations collect structured information securely and integrate it into business applications. “We’re about how people share information with organizations and what happens after that,” said founder and Chief Executive Cedric Savarese.

The new platform builds on the AI assistant FormAssembly introduced last October, which enabled users to generate forms and configure workflows using natural language instructions. The latest release extends those capabilities to entire business processes, including approvals, document generation, electronic signatures and payments.

For example, a municipal government could describe an application process for obtaining a permit to hold an event in a public park. The platform’s assistant, called Fai, could then generate the necessary forms, approval workflows and documentation requirements.

“You can explain what you need in plain English to your agent, and the agent will build the entire process in a couple of minutes,” Savarese said.

FormAssembly claims the AI-assisted builder can reduce development time from days or weeks to minutes. Savarese said the company based those estimates on recreating existing customer workflows using the new platform.

Form conversations

A second major addition is conversational intake agents that replace traditional forms with interactive voice or text conversations. The agents use predefined data structures to guide conversations, answer questions and convert unstructured responses into information suitable for downstream systems.

The agents can also personalize interactions using previously collected information, although Savarese emphasized that access to that information is restricted by default.

“The default for us is privacy,” he said. “You only decide what information needs to be collected and what information is relevant for that particular task for the AI agent.”

FormAssembly uses frontier AI models, primarily from Anthropic PBC, rather than developing its own. Savarese said the company has zero-retention agreements with Anthropic and OpenAI Group PBC to protect customer information.

The revamped platform also adds governance capabilities that evaluate workflows against predefined compliance policies before publication. Organizations can use built-in rules or define their own requirements based on internal policies and applicable regulations. Potential violations are flagged for human review rather than automatically blocked.

MCP support and application programming interfaces enable customers to create and manage FormAssembly workflows through external systems without accessing the software’s traditional interface.

Savarese said this approach could protect established software companies from the risk that AI agents will make conventional software-as-a-service applications obsolete.

“People will use AI agents, but they use AI agents to drive software, not to replace it,” he said.

The company isn’t positioning itself as a comprehensive competitor to business process management vendors such as ServiceNow Inc. Instead, it intends to concentrate on processes that begin with collecting information from people.

Existing customers won’t be forced to migrate immediately. Savarese said migrations aren’t planned until January, and pricing for existing customers remains uncertain. More sophisticated automation capabilities could carry additional charges depending on customers’ current subscriptions.

FormAssembly, founded in 2006, raised its first outside funding of $10 million in 2019 after 13 years of bootstrapping. The company says it has thousands of customers, particularly in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, education and government.

Photo: Pixabay

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