When it comes to managing information across a company, the focus should be on what a file is and how it's used, not where it's coming from, according to the creators of M-Files. That's the foundation for M-Files 2018, the intelligent information management system developed by Finnish-based M-Files Corp., says Greg Milliken, SVP of marketing. "The traditional approach doesn't work anymore," said Milliken during a recent briefing call, referring to systems that further isolate information and aren't seamlessly accessible across a network within a business. "And the longer businesses hold on to this method, the worse it gets." With the help of AI tools that users can access through a unified interface, Milliken said information can now be accessed regardless of the system they originated from.

Content management is about to undergo a foundational shift as artificial intelligence and machine learning bring long-sought order to enterprise content. As the volume of content has increased, the ability to manage it all seems to have eluded us. Ironic, since Content Management Systems were supposed to solve the enterprise content organization problem. The paradox was that the more content you collected, the harder it was to manage. AI and machine learning have the power to change that because machine learning algorithms actually work better with more data, and that has the potential to fundamentally alter how we think about managing content.

Content management is about to undergo a foundational shift as artificial intelligence and machine learning bring long-sought order to enterprise content. As the volume of content has increased, the ability to manage it all seems to have alluded us. Ironic, since Content Management Systems were supposed to solve the enterprise content organization problem. The paradox was that the more content you collected, the harder it was to manage. AI and machine learning have the power to change that because machine learning algorithms actually work better with more data, and that has the potential to fundamentally alter how we think about managing content.

The acquisition of Apprento by M-Files, along with its recently-announced partnership with ABBYY, a global provider of innovative language-based and artificial intelligence technologies, illustrates the company's focus on automating and simplifying the way business professionals manage information and related processes. "Business leaders, industry analysts and others who follow our industry all agree that traditional approaches and solutions for managing information are inadequate and that a new and more intelligent approach is required," said Miika Mäkitalo, CEO at M-Files. "Our acquisition of Apprento coupled with our recent partnership with ABBYY reinforces our commitment to deliver human-like intelligence to the massive volume of unstructured content that resides within disconnected systems and repositories in the typical enterprise." "By incorporating the Apprento Business Context Engine into the M-Files platform, we're delivering powerful artificial intelligence capabilities to current M-Files users as well as setting the foundation for the introduction of many more AI enhancements and tools in the near future," said Trevor Cookson, CEO at Apprento. "I'm honored to join the forward-thinking M-Files team and I'm looking forward to working with them to simplify and improve how people manage and interact with information."