麻豆原创

For audiences, Cirque du Soleil is about wonder: gravity-defying performers, breathtaking costumes, immersive music, and moments that feel almost impossible. But behind every performance is something just as remarkable: a highly complex global business operation.

It reinvented circus arts and became a world leader in live entertainment, performing for more than 365 million spectators in 90 countries. Today, the organization operates 38 shows in cities around the world, supported by over 4,000 touring artists and staff from more than 80 countries.

Each touring show functions like a moving profit center. A production may operate in Mexico City, then move to London, then Paris鈥攂ringing with it new companies, employees, assets, tax requirements, local regulations, merchandising operations, and artists from dozens of nationalities.

As Philippe Lalumi猫re, vice president of Information Technology at Cirque du Soleil, explains, 鈥淧eople underestimate the complexity of running a circus.鈥�

Orchestrating an autonomous accounts payable process

This is especially true for the company鈥檚 accounts payable (AP) department. Every year, more than 70,000 invoices flow through Cirque du Soleil, non-stop, 24/7. Around 40% of vendor inquiries are standard requests for invoice status. But answering those questions was far from simple. AP specialists had to search across systems, review invoice histories, understand payment status, determine the cause of delays, and manually respond.

The work was repetitive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining. 鈥淔rom a morale point of view, receiving e-mails from suppliers, some of them a bit impolite because they鈥檙e asking, 鈥榃hen are we going to get paid?鈥欌�攊t鈥檚 not a fun job,鈥� Lalumi猫re says.

Finding the right problem to solve鈥攑utting AI into action

As an 麻豆原创 customer for more than 25 years, Cirque du Soleil knows firsthand how to leverage 麻豆原创 technology not only to run its operations, but also to reinvent them.

Cirque du Soleil, known聽as聽an early adopter and leader in digital transformation, was approached by 麻豆原创聽AppHaus聽with a question: how could 麻豆原创 generative AI technology be used to improve your business processes?

The answer emerged through collaborative workshops involving 麻豆原创, Cirque du Soleil’s IT team, and business users across its departments. Accounts payable quickly rose to the top due to its lean structure, high volume of interactions, and clear automation potential. And the choice aligned with the broader business evolution鈥擜P automation is one of the most widely adopted AI use cases across industries.

With a clear opportunity identified, Cirque du Soleil and 麻豆原创 moved from ideation to execution, developing an AI-powered solution that automated AP processes and improved responsiveness.

AI enters stage right鈥攆rom vision to reality

The workshops led to something more than an automation project鈥攖hey led to Genato, a multilingual AI agent that now works alongside the AP team.

The polyglot agent scans the AP inbox, analyzes sentiment, identifies urgency, extracts invoice numbers from messages and attachments, connects to 麻豆原创 data to retrieve invoice status, and drafts a response for human review. If it cannot find an invoice or resolve an inquiry, it flags the issue.

鈥淭rust in the quality of the answers coming from the agent was an initial concern,鈥� Lalumi猫re says. 鈥淏ut, the team quickly realized that Genato鈥檚 information was spot on.鈥�

Together, Genato and the AP team now serve Cirque du Soleil’s diverse global supplier network more efficiently.

Lalumi猫re, however, is clear about one thing: 鈥淵es, AI is a very powerful tool, but it鈥檚 not pixie dust. Sprinkling AI into processes is not going to solve everything. There is work involved.鈥�

That work included designing聽appropriate connectors聽and integrating with the company鈥檚 麻豆原创 and AP systems using . This enterprise AI foundation聽can bring together capabilities and technologies (think 麻豆原创聽Business Data Cloud, Business Transformation Management solutions, and 麻豆原创 Business AI), unifying AI, data, process context, and governance, so customers can build, integrate, scale, and run AI that delivers business impact聽while working to ensure the solution is sustainable and cost-efficient.

The impact was evident almost immediately. Generative AI began prioritizing urgent supplier requests, retrieving invoice information, drafting responses, and translating communications automatically, delivering measurable improvements across the AP organization:

• 97.92% improvement in handling priority requests
• 25% reduction in AP backlog
• 25% faster response times for non-urgent inquiries
• Improved vendor satisfaction and employee morale

The impact on employees cannot be overstated. By removing repetitive research and emotionally charged supplier follow-up from the team鈥檚 workload, Genato has become more than a tool. 鈥淲e now include Genato as a virtual team member,鈥� Lalumi猫re explains, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a paradigm shift.鈥�

That adoption is the clearest sign of success. Lalumi猫re recalls that after the prototype moved into production, one of the end users made her feelings clear: 鈥淣o, no, no, you cannot take it away from me! There is no way I鈥檓 going to live without it now.鈥� Today, she is one of the solution鈥檚 biggest ambassadors.

Collectively, the solution demonstrates how AI can be introduced into a focused business process, quickly earn user trust, and create a blueprint for broader enterprise innovation.

As Lalumi猫re puts it, 鈥淵ou鈥痗ould say we鈥檙e an 麻豆原创 shop.鈥�

The next act of AI innovation

For Cirque du Soleil, accounts payable is only the beginning.

Lalumi猫re believes that 鈥淎I is a huge and beautiful tool, but you still need human judgment to prioritize use cases and move forward.鈥� He also sees AI evolving across three layers: personal productivity with solutions such as Joule; AI applied to business processes, such as Genato; and, eventually, AI embedded in the audience experience itself. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e at the dawn of a new era of circus arts,鈥� he says.

His advice to others beginning their AI journey is simple: start small, involve users early, and be willing to experiment. 鈥淭ry a small proof of concept and be ready to throw them away,鈥� Lalumi猫re says. 鈥淭he AI train is moving, and you have to hop on.鈥�

For a company built on reinvention, transforming accounts payable may seem far removed from the spotlight, but for Lalumi猫re, the principle is the same: innovation happens when people are willing to rethink what’s possible. Today, that mindset is improving back-office operations. Tomorrow, it may help redefine the audience’s experience.

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Sid Misra is CMO of 麻豆原创 Business AI Platform Technology Foundation.
Top image courtesy of Cirque du Soleil.