DocuWare is aiming to revolutionize the channel with AI and automated services, with a host of new products announced at its annual EMEA partner conference in Berlin.
DocuWorld 2025 included an in-depth look at the company’s new AI capabilities, many of which are a direct result of its 2024 acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Natif.AI (pronounced ‘native’).
Around 800 guests were in attendance at the Estrel hotel in Berlin where they were witnesses to a broad slate of announcements, detailed product demos, and insights into the company’s market performance – including its opinions on the current global economic outlook.
From new workflow processes to improved invoicing capabilities, the firm went all out for its partners, with AI taking up a large portion of its on-stage presentations.
Natifi.AI
The theme for DocuWorld 2025 is “Empowering automation together” with the slogan indicating a moral stance on AI and the future of work. On stage, DocuWare executives and spokespeople were careful to stress that AI is a tool or an addition to your workforce, not a replacement for workers.
The company’s goal isn’t a fully autonomous workforce. Speaking about the technology during his keynote speech, chief technology officer Michael Bochmann likened fully automated processes to boarding a plane without a pilot, suggesting that people would be reluctant to do so.
A human pilot, he pointed out, has as much stake as the passengers in getting home, so there is a layer of trust that cannot be replicated via AI. This morally sound AI strategy is one of four key technology areas the company is focused on, along with cloud, usability, and workflow.
Arguably, the most eye-catching reveal from its partner conference was a new prototype chatbot based on DocuWare and Natif.AI technology, which was listed as “Intelligent Insights” but will eventually be called ‘Ava’. It is designed as a layer of simplification for users to find and compare documents in their systems.
Similar to Copilot or Gemini, DocuWare customers will be able to receive summaries and or bits of information from their documents at the touch of a button – though it will avoid the search bar-like setup of the Microsoft and Google variations. It is only trained on B2B data with the hope that it will also grow and advance with customer feedback.
In addition, DocuWare also announced updates to its ‘Intelligent Document Processing”, innovations in digital invoice management, and a new API that delivers structured data from DocuWare that can be integrated directly into analysis and integration services, such as Microsoft Power BI.
DocuWare has been developing AI technologies for a number of years, but its acquisition of German startup Natif.AI has helped to bring more AI products to market.
Key to this is the way the firm has handled the acquisition, in a similar manner to its own acquisition by Ricoh. Natif has been kept as a separate company, operating as such, but with greater resources provided by DocuWare which has enabled it to grow and advance its services.
“There is the exchange on the roadmap side, the levels of interaction and inclusion, including them in company events and other things while still keeping their own town halls and their own HR and so on,” CEO Michael Berger told ChannelPro.
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