Appian is a leading enterprise software platform that simplifies how organizations build, automate, and optimize business processes. Known for its low-code approach, Appian empowers enterprises to create powerful applications with minimal coding, bringing together workflow automation, AI, and data integration in a single unified environment. As companies face increasing pressure to modernize and move faster, Appian offers a practical path to streamline operations, reduce development time, and drive digital transformation across the enterprise.
Medhat Galal, SVP of Engineering, has been with Appian since its early days, playing a key role in scaling the Appian engineering team and driving innovation across automation, AI, RPA, integrations, and vertical solutions. I sat down with Medhat to discuss how Appian is navigating the AI shift, what’s stayed consistent in its engineering culture, and why simplicity continues to be a guiding principle at Appian.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): Hello Medhat. Nice to meet you. Can you tell me a bit about your role at Appian?
Medhat (Appian): Hello Shan. Nice to meet you as well. The Appian product got me in the door. The wonderful people kept me here. The culture here at Appian is amazing and has not changed since day one. I spent most of my early career at Appian in consulting working directly with customers. That gave me a front-row seat to their challenges. Then I switched into engineering, where there was a small team of only three of us at the time. I built the Appian engineering team from the ground up. And growing the team shaped who I am at Appian. I became the person people turn to when something new needs to get built. My current role at Appian is SVP of Engineering.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): Could you share some of the technologies and capabilities you’ve helped develop at Appian?
Medhat (Appian): Sure. Everything from integrations to RPA to process mining. More recently, I’ve been leading our automation and AI strategy. I also oversee our vertical solutions. Things like government acquisition systems and insurance claims tools. These sit on top of the Appian platform and solve specific problems for industries that need tight controls and clear processes.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): How are you adapting as Appian’s focus is evolving from low-code development to AI and automation?
Medhat (Appian): The label may have changed. But our philosophy did not change. Appian has always focused on removing friction between what customers want to do and what they’re able to do. That applies whether customers are building workflows with low-code or building with AI. At Appian, we are not chasing trends. We are applying the same principles we’ve always used. Unify the customer experience. Make it simple. Make it secure. And do not make people learn new systems just to do their job.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): How do you approach AI inside your engineering team at Appian?
Medhat (Appian): Internally, we approach AI with caution and clarity. It’s not magic. We’ve been using AI for years, starting with intelligent document processing. We’re very careful about how we apply AI in production environments. We focus on two things. How AI can help our customers right now and how AI can support our engineers behind the scenes. Internally, we use AI to clean up code libraries, automate routine work, and speed up development. But we never skip quality checks. If our code fails, it impacts real people. That’s not a risk we’re willing to take.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): What gets your team excited about AI right now?
Medhat (Appian): We are excited about how AI simplifies development. You’ll see that with Composer, our tool that lets you design interfaces, processes, and data models using natural language. You tell it what you want. It builds it. No need for if-else statements or complex flows. We are also excited about agentic AI. These are systems that follow instructions the way a person would. You give the AI agents a task, some policy documents, and a dataset, and they do the rest of the work with oversight, of course.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): Is Appian just for large enterprises, or can smaller teams use it too?
Medhat (Appian): Appian is best suited for large, complex problems. You usually need a team and a budget. We’re not the right fit for a side project or a lightweight tool. But if you’re working in a
regulated industry and need your software to work and get things done, we’re built for that.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): How much of Appian’s AI stack is built in-house versus based on external models?
Medhat (Appian): We use what works. Sometimes that means using a large existing model. Other times, a smaller model does the job. We don’t train our own foundational models. That’s not where our value lies. Appian’s strength is knowing which model to use and making it easy for customers to get results without needing to know how it works.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): How involved is engineering at Appian when a customer runs into functionality limits?
Medhat (Appian): We get involved fast. We treat it like a real business problem, because it is. Our customer success and project teams flag the issue, and then we bring in product managers and engineers to solve the problem. It’s a top priority. Appian does not sell vaporware. If we say the product solves a problem, we stand behind our word. That’s why Appian’s customer retention is so high. We mean what we say and do what we say. And if something breaks, we fix it. A lot of companies overpromise. We don’t.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): What’s next for Appian?
Medhat (Appian): We’re changing how enterprises build and automate business processes. Our customers will not need to know how to code. Our customers will simply describe what they want, and our system will build it for them. That’s the future. And it’s already starting to happen. We’re not chasing hype. We’re solving real problems with real tools. That’s what matters.
Shan (Pulse 2.0): Thank you for making the time today, Medhat. I really appreciate our conversation.
Medhat (Appian): Likewise, Shan. I enjoyed our discussion.
