Every day, your teams are buried in documents. Contracts waiting for review. Invoices stuck in approval queues. Compliance files that someone has to read before anything can move. The volume is relentless and the people doing this work are spending hours extracting information, chasing signatures, and manually managing files.
The cost isn’t just in efficiency. It’s slower cycle times, inconsistent outcomes, and processes that won’t scale with your business. Every hour spent chasing documents is time your teams aren’t spending bringing new ideas or products to market, leaving revenue on the table.
Box Automate changes that.
It takes care of the more complex, manual steps in content-driven processes. AI is built directly into the workflow, extracting key information, understanding documents, and routing tasks automatically so work doesn’t get stalled waiting on the next step.
Built on Box’s enterprise-grade security, it keeps your most sensitive content protected as work moves. And with people in the loop to review and validate AI-driven decisions, your teams stay in control.
Teams spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on high-impact activities. Decisions happen faster, outcomes are more consistent, and your business grows without the same bottlenecks slowing work down.
Built for Process Variability
Most platforms are built around consistency: fixed templates, predictable fields, and structured data. But that’s not how real content shows up. Contracts vary by vendor, invoices come in dozens of formats, and policies evolve across teams and regions.
Box Automate is designed for that reality. Instead of relying on rigid rules, you can leverage multiple AI Agents in combination for extraction, reasoning, and task execution. Build workflows that understand and act on content as it is with:
- Box Extract to pull structured data from contracts, invoices, and forms
- Box Agent to read and interpret content, answer questions, and make decisions in the workflow
- Custom Agents that handle specialized use cases using defined instructions and context
Together, these agents allow workflows to interpret unstructured content, adapt to variations, and move work forward without constant human intervention.
Automates Work from Start to Finish
In most organizations, automation handles isolated steps, not entire processes. Box Automate connects the full workflow so processes run continuously instead of stopping and starting between steps. The workflow builder includes:
- Triggers like file uploads, form submissions, or metadata changes that kick off workflows automatically
- Workflow outcomes that update content metadata, assign tasks, and route decisions based on real-time context
- Box Native outcomes like Box Doc Gen and Box Sign to generate, modify, and finalize documents in flow
- Integrations that connect workflows across external systems and tools
Work moves seamlessly between AI, people, and systems with Box Automate. Routine steps are handled automatically while humans step in where judgment is needed.
Easy to Build, Easy to Scale
Automation often stalls before it starts. Building workflows with most platforms requires technical expertise, long development cycles, and constant IT involvement to make even small changes.
Box Automate removes that barrier. Business users can design, launch, and adapt workflows on their own without writing code with:
- Drag-and-drop workflow builder that makes it easy for any team to build processes quickly using an intuitive interface
- Conditional logic and parallel branching to handle complex processes with many decision points and outcomes
- Custom Agents that can used at scale across many workflows. Updates to the agent, including LLM changes, can be saved once and automatically deployed to every workflow
- Human-in-the-loop steps to review and validate AI-driven decisions
Teams can go from idea to live workflow in minutes, not weeks. And because everything runs within Box, workflows automatically inherit the same security, permissions, and compliance policies already applied to your content.
That means faster time to value, broader adoption across the business, and the ability to scale automation without adding complexity.
Real Results, Across Every Industry
Box Automate is already reshaping how teams handle their most document-intensive work. At Argonne National Laboratory, early results from automating scientific publication and dataset workflows point to publication entry times being cut tenfold.
We're currently spending a lot of researcher and support staff time manually managing scientific publication and dataset workflows across all our research divisions. Our experience with the new Box Automate feature to streamline those processes, use AI Agents for metadata extraction, and reduce administrative burden on authors has given us promising results that show Box Automate could cut publication entry times down tenfold.
The same pattern is playing out across industries:
- Finance: Extract invoice data, validate against supporting documents, and route for approval, reducing processing time from days to minutes
- HR: Validate employee documents and generate personalized onboarding materials automatically
- Legal: Automate contract review processes, extract key terms, and route agreements for approval
- Procurement: Streamline vendor onboarding and risk-assessment workflows
- Loan operations: Cross-check applications against supporting documents and flag inconsistencies
- Public sector and research: Manage policy, reporting, and compliance workflows with greater transparency
Available Now
Box Automate is now generally available for all business accounts. Organizations must be on Enterprise Advanced to gain access to the full suite of agentic workflow automation capabilities.
If your teams are spending too much time managing documents instead of moving work forward, this is where to start.
Ready to see it in action?
- Join the AI Content Workflows user group to engage with the community
- Register for the Box Content + AI Summit on May 20 to see Box Automate live
Box Automate FAQs
What is workflow automation software?
Workflow automation software replaces manual, repetitive tasks, like routing documents for review, chasing approvals, or re-entering data, with automated processes that run on rules you define. When a trigger occurs (a file is uploaded, a form is submitted, a deadline passes), the workflow kicks off automatically, moving work through the right steps without human intervention. Modern workflow automation platforms go further, using AI to read and understand the content inside documents, not just move files from A to B. The results are faster decisions, fewer errors, and teams that spend time on work that actually requires their judgment.
What is Box Automate?
Box Automate is an agentic workflow automation platform built for content-driven work. It orchestrates tasks across your teams, AI agents, and enterprise systems with your content at the center. Unlike general-purpose automation tools, Box Automate is natively agentic: it was built from the ground up to leverage Box's AI platform, which means AI capabilities are much easier to add directly into the workflow without technical expertise.
Box Automate uses AI agents to read and act on the content inside your files, then routes work, triggers approvals, and generates outputs automatically. Native Box capabilities, including Box Forms, Box Extract, Box Sign, Box Doc Gen, Box AI, Box Agents, and Box Hubs, are available directly within workflows. Everything runs on the same secure Box platform your organization already uses, so there's no new infrastructure to manage and no content leaving your governed environment.
What kinds of tasks can I automate with a content workflow platform?
Content workflow platforms are most valuable when work depends on the content inside a document. Common use cases include contract review and routing, invoice processing and approval, employee and vendor onboarding, claims management, policy lifecycle management, and RFP response workflows. With Box Automate, you can build end-to-end workflows that intake documents via Box Forms or direct submission, extract key data with Box Extract, route tasks dynamically between the right people or AI agents, collect e-signatures with Box Sign, generate output documents with Box Doc Gen, and publish curated content portals with Box Hubs. All without switching tools or writing code.
Do I need to know how to code to build workflows in Box Automate?
No. Box Automate includes an intuitive, drag-and-drop workflow builder designed for business users, no technical expertise required. You can set triggers, define conditions, add branching logic, and connect to other systems, all from a no-code/low-code interface. Conditional and parallel branching are available for complex use cases. Advanced Variables introduce memory, transformation, and dynamic reasoning into automation, allowing workflows to behave more like intelligent agents than rigid pipelines, so you can handle variability in content and make complex decisions without rebuilding infrastructure.
IT teams can also use the HTTP Connector to extend workflows to any third-party application. Whether you're a business analyst or a developer, Box Automate meets you where you are.
How does AI fit into enterprise workflow automation?
AI changes what's possible in workflow automation. Traditional tools move files and trigger notifications based on rules you define manually. AI-powered automation goes further: it reads and understands the content inside documents, extracts key information, makes routing decisions based on what it finds, and handles tasks that previously required a human to review each file individually. The most effective AI automation isn't a one-off task; it's a full agentic workflow where AI agents and people work together, each handling the steps they're best suited for.
Research supports this. An MIT study found that 95% of custom enterprise AI solutions fail to reach production or deliver measurable ROI. The successful 5% focus on learning-capable, agentic systems that integrate deeply into workflows. Box Automate is built to be natively agentic with AI built directly into the workflow engine itself. As Box's AI platform evolves, Automate automatically inherits those improvements, which means your workflows get smarter without requiring you to redesign them.
What AI models does Box Automate support?
Box Automate gives you the flexibility to choose the AI model that fits your needs. It supports leading large language models including Claude (Anthropic), OpenAI/GPT, and Google Gemini. You can select the model at the workflow level, so different processes can use different models based on the task.
Agents in Box Automate are powered by Box AI. Because Box Automate is natively agentic and built on Box's AI platform, new models and capabilities from industry-leading vendors can improve your workflows without requiring you to redesign automation logic. And because all AI processing happens within Box's governed environment, your content stays secure regardless of which model you use.
How do I keep sensitive documents secure when automating workflows?
Security in workflow automation comes down to where your content lives and who (or what) can access it. Many automation tools require you to move files outside your governed environment to process them, creating compliance gaps and data exposure risks. A platform with native content management keeps your documents in a single, controlled environment throughout the entire workflow. Box Automate runs entirely within the Box platform, so your content never leaves your governed environment unless you explicitly send it to a third-party system. AI agents only access content that users and agents are authorized to see, and every action is logged for audit purposes.
How does Box Automate protect sensitive content during automated workflows?
Box Automate inherits the full security and compliance framework of the Box platform. Your content stays within Box's governed environment at every step of the workflow — AI agents only access files that users and agents are authorized to see, and all workflow activity is logged for audit and compliance purposes. Box's platform supports a wide range of compliance certifications including FedRAMP, HIPAA, FINRA, SOC 2, and GDPR, so regulated industries can automate with confidence.
There's no need to move sensitive documents to a separate automation tool or expose them to uncontrolled AI environments. Security isn't bolted on — it's built into the platform Box Automate runs on.
How is content workflow automation different from tools like Power Automate or UiPath?
Tools like Microsoft Power Automate and UiPath are strong at moving structured data between systems. Think field-to-field data transfers or screen-scraping repetitive UI tasks. Where they struggle is when the workflow depends on understanding what's inside a document. If your process requires reading a contract to find renewal terms, extracting invoice line items, or routing a claim based on its contents, you need a platform that treats content as first-class objects.
What this means, practically, is that tools like Power Automate and UiPath will require a lot of custom building and maintenance to not only use AI within the workflow to understand content, but to then take those outputs and automate complex decision-making. Box Automate combines content management, AI-driven document intelligence, and workflow orchestration in a single governed platform, so agentic automation that is driven by the content itself is easy to set up and configure.
What's the difference between Box Automate and Box Relay?
Box Relay is Box's existing workflow tool, designed for task routing and approval workflows. Box Automate is a completely new workflow builder, built from the ground up for AI-native, content-driven automation. Box Automate is meant to completely replace Relay.
Depending on your Box Business Plan, you will have access to Automatecapabilities not available in Relay:
- Business/Business Plus: Automate includes a visual, drag-and-drop workflow builder.
- Enterprise/Enterprise Plus: Automate includes conditional and parallel branching, Advanced Variables, workflow sharing and collaboration, and end-user reporting and monitoring. Plus everything in Business/Business Plus.
- Enterprise Advanced: Automate includes AI capabilities, including Box Agents, Custom Agents, and Box Extract for AI-powered data extraction. This enables fully agentic automation that can read, understand, and act on document content. You also get access to build workflow outcomes with Box native applications like Box Forms, Box Doc Gen, and Box Sign. The HTTP connector is also only available in Enterprise Advanced. Also includes everything in Enterprise/Enterprise Plus.
Can automated workflows still include human review and approval steps?
Yes, and for most enterprise workflows, they should. Fully automated processes work well for high-volume, low-risk tasks. But for decisions that carry legal, financial, or compliance weight, you want a human in the loop. Box Automate supports Human-in-the-Loop orchestration where AI agents handle the analysis and extraction work then route the task to a person for review or approval at the right moment. This gives you the speed and scale of automation without sacrificing accountability.
How do I get started with Box Automate?
Box Automate is available to all Box business plans. Core workflow capabilities, including the drag-and-drop builder, are available across plans. Features like conditional branching, Advanced Variables, and workflow sharing are available to Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans. Full agentic capabilities, including using Box Agentwithin workflows and Box Extract for AI-powered data extraction, are available on Enterprise Advanced. If you're already a Box customer, contact your account team to learn which plan includes Box Automate and whether you're eligible to activate it. If you're new to Box, you can request a demo at box.com/automate to see the platform in action.
Getting started is straightforward: Box Automate's drag-and-drop builder lets you deploy your first workflow in minutes, and Box's professional services and partner ecosystem are available to help you design and scale more complex automation programs. Read the documents here: About Box Automate
