What's New

Keep up with what’s changed in ProcessPlan. Entries you haven’t seen since your last visit are marked New.

The AI Strategist asks who to go toAugust 2, 2026

To act on something, the AI Strategist often needs to reach the right person, and a list of names does not tell it who handles what. Now, when it needs to raise something and cannot see who owns it, it asks you right then and says why: “I need to ask about product pricing and I can’t see who owns that. Who should I ask?” Tell it, and it notes down what that person does and stops asking. It also tells you how it worked out who to approach, so you can correct it when it guesses wrong.

You do not have to wait to be asked. Administrators can set Functional area and Seniority level on anyone’s record under Administration > Users, and both are included in the user list CSV export so you can see at a glance who is still missing them.

The AI Strategist is now included with every subscriptionAugust 1, 2026

The AI Strategist is part of ProcessPlan for every customer. There is no longer an add-on to turn on and no separate charge for it, and the toggle has been removed from the Plan & Payment page. If your account was not already using it, the Strategist starts work on its own: it looks over how your account runs, sets up the focus areas that fit your data, and begins filing its AI Daily Briefing. Nothing to configure or approve first.

Cross-Company Peer Insights is included too. It stays opt-in, because it means sharing anonymized benchmarks with other companies, but opting in no longer adds anything to your bill. You will find its toggle in the same place.

The Strategist works for any account with an active subscription or a trial in progress. If a subscription lapses, its analysts stop, your focus areas and briefing pages say so, and everything picks straight back up once billing is current.

The Strategist hires its own analysts, without asking firstAugust 1, 2026

No focus area waits for your approval to start. When the Strategist sees a pattern one of its analysts is built for, it puts that analyst to work and tells you it did, rather than queuing up a request for you to approve. The standing “ready to staff itself” offer is gone, because it was asking permission for something already happening.

Every analyst in the catalog now has a rule for when it is warranted, so the roster fills itself in as your data grows: the per-entity watchers once your processes reference the same customers repeatedly, the outcome lenses once your responses carry ratings, the statistical ones once there are enough completed runs for the maths to be honest. Each starts observe-first, each is recorded in the decision journal, and any of them can be paused or retired with a word in a strategy session.

Approval still belongs where it matters: on what an analyst proposes to do. A change to a process, work launched on your behalf, or a step automated still waits for you every time. Two exceptions keep asking first, both because they reach beyond your own data: the watchers of outside companies ask which records to follow before researching them on the open web, and handing a process over to the AI Process Owner stays your call, since that one runs the queue and contacts your people. See Focus Areas.

Point a file search straight at the folders you care aboutJuly 31, 2026

Every AI Employee action that searches for files now accepts a pattern in the folder path as well as the file name. Wrap the part you want matched in angle brackets and leave the rest as ordinary text: C:\Sales\<20\d\d>\Invoices searches the Invoices folder inside every four digit year folder, and report_<\d{4}>.pdf matches file names such as report_2026.pdf.

Searches over big folder trees get much faster, because the AI Employee only opens the folders that match instead of reading through everything underneath the starting folder. Angle brackets are not allowed in Windows file and folder names, so an ordinary path is never mistaken for a pattern and there is nothing to switch on. This replaces the File Names / Regex (includes subfolders) switch; if you were using it, put the pattern in the folder path or file name instead, and turn on Search All Subfolders where you need it. See Matching Folders and File Names.

One related change: Files and Folders as JSON Array now returns at most 100 entries, in name order, and says in the log when the list was cut short. That result is meant to be read by an AI prompt or a script, and a longer list is rarely useful to either. If one of your jobs was relying on a longer listing, narrow it with a pattern in the folder path so the list you get back is complete.

Ask the AI Strategist to put an AI agent on a step and it sets it up for youJuly 31, 2026

Ask the AI Strategist to have AI handle part of a process - drafting the reply, summarizing the document that came in, researching a request, classifying it - and it now sets that AI Agent action up inside the conversation. Previously it would explain where to configure one and leave the setup to you.

It shows you exactly what it will put in place first: which step, what the agent will do, and which field its answer gets written into so you can read and edit it. Say yes and the automation is live straight away. It runs the next time that step’s task is assigned.

The agent does the work and then completes the step, choosing the response that fits what it found - the success route when the work came out clean, the failure or exception route when it did not. That choice is how your team sees both that the work is finished and how it turned out, and the run carries on down whichever route that response leads to, exactly as your diagram lays it out. So tell the Strategist which response should be chosen in which circumstance and it writes that into the agent’s instructions. If you want a person to check the agent’s work before the run goes further, that is simply a review step after the agent’s step, and the Strategist can add it for you in the same conversation.

If a step already has an AI agent on it, the Strategist tells you what is running there rather than stacking a second one on top. Setting this up requires edit access to the process.

The AI Strategist works out what an automation will cost before you build itJuly 30, 2026

Describe a job you would like an AI Employee to take over and the AI Strategist now tells you what it would cost to run each month. It works before anything has been built and before the job has ever run, so you no longer have to convert your team’s hours into a bill in your head to find out whether automating something is worth it.

It breaks the job into its real steps and works out which parts need an AI Employee working a screen and which can be handled by AI reading documents and data instead, which is usually the cheaper way to do it. You get a range rather than a single figure, along with the assumptions it had to make, so you can correct anything that is wrong and get a sharper number straight away. If the work fits within the hours already available on a workstation you are paying for, it says so instead of quoting you for another one.

Ask it directly, as in “what would it cost to check every invoice against its purchase order?”, or let it raise the number itself when a job worth automating comes up in conversation. For work that needs a screen recording, it gives you a rough setup range as well; the exact one-time fine-tuning price is still quoted from your own recording, before you commit to anything.

AI Employees check documents exactly instead of going from memoryJuly 28, 2026

Ask an AI - File Related Prompt whether particular values appear in a PDF, text, or CSV file and each value is now checked exactly against the text in the document. Long reports full of similar looking codes and reference numbers were the weak spot before: reading a hundred page document and recalling whether one account number out of a thousand was present is exactly the kind of question that could come back differently on two runs of the same job. Now you can hand over a whole list and ask which entries are missing, or which is the first one missing, and rely on the answer.

The AI Employee also takes a little more time to reason through file questions, which shows up as better answers on anything that takes several steps: comparing a list against a document, cross referencing two sections, or working out totals from a table. If a PDF turns out to be only a scanned picture of a page, with no text to check, it now says so instead of guessing.

AI Prompt actions handle attached spreadsheets and files betterJuly 28, 2026

Dates in an attached Excel spreadsheet now reach the AI as real dates. A spreadsheet that used anything other than Excel’s default date formats could previously hand the AI a raw number like 45678 to make sense of, which is why the occasional answer got a date wrong. Times, and cells holding an elapsed duration such as a timesheet total, come through accurately now too.

Separately, an AI Prompt action now treats the contents of an attached file strictly as material to work on, never as instructions to obey. Text that tells the AI what to do is not followed if it sits inside an attached file: in a spreadsheet cell, in a document, or as text in an image. This matters because attachments often reach a process from outside your company, through a public form, an emailed reply, or a file a supplier sent you. The subject matter of a file is still read normally, so an attached policy that says “approve when the total is under $5,000” is information the AI will use when it answers your question.

The screen recorder now reminds you to narrate instead of ending your recordingJuly 28, 2026

The screen recorder used to end a recording if it stopped hearing you, which meant a long stretch of quiet concentration could cost you the whole take. It no longer does that. Once the recorder has heard your voice, silence never stops the recording - if you go quiet for 30 seconds you get a Narration Needed reminder in the corner of your screen, repeating every 30 seconds until you start talking again. Your recording keeps running the whole time, and nothing appears in the captured video.

The recorder also speaks up about a problem it used to keep to itself. If it can hear you but your narration is too quiet to be processed, you now get a Microphone Too Quiet reminder on the same 30-second rhythm. Previously a too-quiet recording ran happily to the end and only disappointed you afterwards.

The one check that still stops a recording is at the very beginning: if the recorder hears nothing at all during the first 30 seconds, it stops and tells you, because that nearly always means the microphone is muted or the wrong one is selected - and there is no point recording a process nobody can hear. Pausing no longer counts against you either: step away with Ctrl+Shift+P and you are not reminded, and the paused time is not held against the opening 30 seconds. Restarting a recording now keeps the microphone you picked instead of quietly reverting to the system default.

The AI Strategist checks its work before changing a process, and can now reshape the fields you already haveJuly 27, 2026

Ask the Strategist to change a process and it now tests the change against your live process before anything is saved, telling you if the result would not hold together - if removing a step would leave later steps with nothing leading to them, you hear about it while the process is still untouched. It can also do far more to the data a process captures: alongside adding fields it can rename them, make them required or optional, reorder them, add dropdown choices, and point a process table lookup at a different table or narrow which records it offers. It shows you exactly what it intends to change and waits for your yes. A few things it will always decline, and say why: changing an existing field’s type, deleting fields, and repointing a Sum or Count field.

The Quick Diagram Builder has been retired. If you have your steps written down as a list, paste them into a conversation with the Strategist and ask it to build the process - it proposes the steps and outcomes, and builds once you agree.

Diagram connector lines no longer hide behind each otherJuly 27, 2026

In the diagram editor, connector lines now keep out of each other’s way. Where two lines used to run along the same path, one drawn directly over the other so what looked like a single connector was really two, they are now offset so both stay visible. Lines still cross where the flow calls for it. Where several connectors leave or arrive at the same step they fan out into their own lanes instead of stacking up as one thick line, and if you drag a loop-back line’s routing handle right onto another connector, it settles just above or below that line rather than disappearing behind it. Your layout is untouched: steps stay exactly where you put them, and only the lines between them shift enough to stay distinct.

The AI Strategist can now fix a lookup field that offers the wrong recordsJuly 27, 2026

A process table lookup pointed at the wrong table shows up as a field that is mysteriously always empty. Tell your Strategist about it in a strategy session: it now checks which table the field reads, and once you confirm the table it should read instead, it makes the change itself. It can also set or remove the filter that limits which records the field offers - including a filter that follows a value already entered on the same form, so a Project field can offer only the projects belonging to the company chosen a moment earlier. Values already saved on runs in progress are left exactly as they are.

Ask the AI Strategist how your numbers are distributed, and let it watch for unpredictable timelinesJuly 26, 2026

Two additions for anyone who plans against their process data. In a strategy session you can now ask how a number is actually distributed - “what does our order-value spread look like?”, “how long does fulfillment take, best case and worst case?” - and the Strategist computes the typical value, the spread, the slowest 1 in 20, and the shape from every matching run. If you build simulation or forecasting models, it will even tell you which probability distribution fits a variable best, with the parameters to plug in. And a new Cycle-Time Predictability analyst watches for the process that runs steadily but finishes on a timeline nobody can promise against - a typical run in days, the slowest in weeks - and points at what the slow runs share so the spread can be tightened for good.

Click On Text joins the action list, and AI-built automations wait for your reviewJuly 25, 2026

The simplest computer vision click, Click On Visible Text, previously appeared only in jobs the AI built from a screen recording. You can now add one by hand: choose Computer Vision - Click On Text from the Action Type list. Also, when the AI builds an automation from a screen recording, the automation now arrives switched off so you can review the generated actions first; it will not trigger on its own until you turn it on.

The AI Strategist now proves improvements with real statistics and guards the gainsJuly 25, 2026

The Strategist’s judgment got a serious upgrade in rigor. A new Process Stability analyst learns the range each process normally runs in and speaks up only when the numbers genuinely leave it - ordinary ups and downs stay quiet, and favorable shifts are flagged too so what caused them can become standard practice. When you approve an improvement, the Strategist now verifies it statistically: it measures before and after, only calls a gain real when it clearly beats the process’s normal variation, keeps watching afterward, and raises it if the gain ever starts slipping. And you can now ask the Strategist how reliably any process is running - it computes the answer from your real runs and says honestly when there is not enough history yet.

Your AI Daily Briefing now organizes around your strategic initiativesJuly 25, 2026

The AI Strategist now connects every finding its analysts make to the strategic initiative it advances or threatens, and your AI Daily Briefing leads with them: findings that bear on a stated priority come first and name the initiative they serve, decisions waiting on you are labeled with the initiative they affect, and when nothing is moving on one of your initiatives the Strategist says so plainly. Findings unrelated to any initiative still surface on their own merits - initiatives decide what leads, not what gets watched.

Hand a process to the AI Strategist to run end to endJuly 22, 2026

With the new Process Ownership capability you can hand one process to the AI Strategist and it runs that process’s queue for you: it watches every open run, checks in personally with whoever an overdue or unusually slow step is waiting on, follows up if nothing moves, and escalates a genuinely stuck run to you with the right decision teed up. Before it escalates, it asks the assignee directly what the step is waiting on (they answer through an emailed link that opens a conversation with the Strategist about that exact item), and their answer picks the recommendation: reassign the step to the person who has done it before with the lightest queue, extend the deadline when the blocker is external or time-bound, or cancel the run when the work is no longer needed - each carried out by the Strategist itself on your one approval. When an owned process’s typical run time drifts well past the baseline recorded at handover, it opens an improvement campaign: concrete changes pulled one at a time (a deadline policy on the bottleneck step, a rebalance of where that step’s work lands), each made on your approval and measured on its own before-and-after, until the number is back or it says plainly that it has exhausted its levers. And for solutions that take more than one piece, you can now design a complete solution with the Strategist in conversation - a new process, changes to existing ones, and automations connecting them - and it files the whole plan as one proposal: a single approval, given right in the conversation or from your Decision Queue, builds every piece in order, and if a step cannot be built it stops and tells you exactly what was completed. Approved moves build a track record that can earn it a standing offer to route stuck steps on its own, with hard guardrails: at most one unassisted move per step, every move journaled, and runs you are already deciding on stay yours. Results are measured, not asserted: it records how the process performed before the handover and its owner’s report in the AI Daily Briefing compares runs on its watch against that baseline, saying “too early to measure” until the data is there. Ownership is always your explicit decision (approve its offer, ask for it in chat, or add the AI Process Owner focus area by hand), it never changes how the process works without your approval, and you can take the process back anytime.

File actions can match names with a regular expression, including subfoldersJuly 20, 2026

Every AI Employee action that searches for files by name - moving, copying, finding, opening, deleting, listing files as JSON, starting an instance for each file row, and uploading files into a process field - has a new File Names / Regex (includes subfolders) switch. Leave it off to keep matching file names with * and ? wildcards and semicolon-separated patterns. Turn it on to write one regular expression that is matched against each file’s path relative to the folder, so a single pattern like .*\.pdf$ can find files in the folder and every subfolder beneath it.

This switch was replaced on 31 July 2026 by patterns you write directly in the folder path and file name. See Matching Folders and File Names for how it works now.

Ask the AI to change who a step is assigned toJuly 19, 2026

In any AI conversation, including a strategy session, you can now ask to reassign a step in one of your processes: to a specific person, to a team as one shared task, to every member of a team individually (each person gets their own copy), to whoever on the team has the fewest pending tasks, or back to the process initiator or the previous step’s owner. The AI confirms the step and the new assignee with you before making the change, and the change applies to tasks created from then on; tasks already in flight keep their current assignee.

Automation upgrades: dynamic table searches and sharper conditionsJuly 19, 2026

The Process: Find In Process Table action now accepts field tokens in its Process Table Query, so a search can be driven by live values from the current process instead of fixed text. Automation conditions got sharper too: conditions that compare a User List field to a specific person, and conditions on Process Table Lookup fields, now match exactly and predictably in both their “equals” and “contains” forms.

Run the AI Strategist's whole team from the conversationJuly 18, 2026

You no longer need a configuration screen to direct the AI Strategist. In any strategy session, ask it to put a new focus area to work and it resolves the details from your data, plays the exact plan back, and sets the analyst up once you agree - observe-first, always. Pausing, retargeting, changing settings, and asking for more or less sensitivity all work the same way. Your direction sticks: standing facts and rules you state in conversation are recorded (with your confirmation) and honored by every future analysis. When a focus area fits your data but needs one answer only you can give, the Strategist asks the one question instead of staying silent. It learns from dismissals too - never re-raising equivalents of what you dismissed, and checking in once when several dismissals share a pattern. And once you’ve directed a few setups yourself, it offers to staff the clear-cut analysts on its own: announced after each one, reversible with a word in chat, and never without your standing approval.

New specialists join the AI Strategist's teamJuly 17, 2026

The AI Strategist’s roster of focus areas just grew. New analysts plan coverage before someone goes on vacation, act the moment an employee leaves, notice when today is running far off your normal rhythm, remember how past work for a customer went and say so at kickoff, catch the moments that go unusually well while a thank-you still lands, prepare your side of a negotiation from your own records, watch the outside world for RFPs and grants that fit your company, quietly notice when someone’s workload has been climbing for weeks, and more. The Strategist sets up the ones that fit your data itself; browse the catalog to add the rest. See Focus Areas to meet them.

Tell the AI Strategist a process is retiredJuly 16, 2026

When a process is no longer part of how you work, just say so in any strategy session: the Strategist marks it retired, with your confirmation, and stops watching it, so you won’t see suggestions or proposals about it anymore. The same works right while reviewing one of its recommendations: tell it the process is deprecated and it declines the recommendation and offers to retire the process on the spot. Nothing is deleted, and it can bring the process back if you change your mind. You can also ask it to pause or resume any of its focus areas from the same conversation.

Document a process by recording your screenJuly 14, 2026

The new ProcessPlan Recorder for Windows captures your screen and your spoken narration while you perform a process the way you normally would. Stop the recording and it uploads automatically, and ProcessPlan turns it into a documented process, either as a new process or merged into one you already have. See the Screen Recorder guide to get started.

Connect AI assistants to ProcessPlanJuly 14, 2026

ProcessPlan now speaks MCP (Model Context Protocol), the open standard AI assistants use to connect to business tools. Point any MCP-capable assistant at your account with an API token and it can browse your process templates, check on running processes, review tasks and field values, and complete tasks for you, all with your user’s permissions. See Connecting AI Assistants (MCP) for setup instructions.

The AI Strategist builds what you agree onJuly 13, 2026

A strategy session no longer ends with a to-do list. When you and the AI Strategist settle on a change, it can carry it out right from the conversation: create a new process or data table, add steps or outcomes to an existing process, add new data fields to an existing process (new), and launch or schedule process runs. It always shows you the exact design and asks for your confirmation before it builds anything. The Strategist’s setup interview for new accounts builds the same way: confirm a process design in the conversation and it is created on the spot, ready to run, with no approval step in between.

A diagram editor that keeps your layoutJuly 13, 2026

The process diagram editor has been rebuilt. Add steps with the amber + button, draw connections between steps, reroute loop-back connectors around other nodes, and annotate the canvas with sticky notes. See The Diagram Editor for the full tour. Best of all, your diagram now keeps its shape: the layout you design is saved exactly as you arranged it and is never reformatted automatically, and the same shape carries through to the diagrams of running processes and heat maps.

Redesigned date and number filtersJuly 12, 2026

Date columns in tables now filter with a date range selector: pick a preset like Last 7 days, This Month, or Last Quarter, or choose a custom From/To range. Presets stay relative, so a bookmarked or shared view always shows the current period. Number columns get a matching minimum/maximum selector. See Filtering Columns for the details, and Filtering Lists for the new date range syntax in the API.

New documentation siteJuly 12, 2026

Welcome to the new ProcessPlan documentation site! It covers the core of the product (process templates, running processes, tasks, process diagrams, and the AI Strategist) with full-text search (press / or click the search bar). We’ll post new features and release notes here as they ship.