If you’ve been following Hyland closely over the past year, you’ve probably heard the buzz around the Content Innovation Cloud (CIC). But you might be wondering, what exactly is it? Here are the key features and what they mean for your enterprise content management strategy.
What the Hyland Content Innovation Cloud (CIC)?
The Hyland Content Innovation Cloud connects content across Hyland and non-Hyland systems, enriches that information with business context, and activates it within governed business processes. The result is a foundation for enterprise-scale AI, intelligent automation, and emerging agentic technologies without requiring organizations to replace the systems they already rely on. This means you can:
- Get the most out of your existing content solution, regardless of its deployment model, thanks to CIC’s continuous enhancements.
- Tap into CIC’s extensive integrative capabilities so your users can integrate content and process capabilities into the systems they use most, making their lives easier.
- Take advantage of generative AI and intelligent automation technologies by intelligently automating your content-heavy processes.
- Gain deeper insights into your processes and accelerate time-to-market.
- Enjoy a unified content ecosystem that supports IDP, process intelligence, knowledge discovery, and more.
The overarching goal: helping organizations transform fragmented enterprise information into trusted decisions, actions, and business outcomes by connecting content, context, and processes.
How Does the Hyland Content Innovation Cloud (CIC) Relate to OnBase?
Great question. You can think of the CIC as an extension of OnBase, not a replacement. It takes your solution’s existing capabilities to the next level, bringing together content services, IDP, business process management, and knowledge discovery with a focus on AI enablement, allowing you to innovate and improve your content-centric processes.
To give you a clearer picture of what this technology could look like in your organization (and help you determine whether it could be right for your unique situation). Keep reading for a clearer picture of what this technology could look like in your organization, CIC’s key features, and how it helps you clear the AI adoption challenges that stall most enterprise rollouts.
What are the Benefits of the Hyland Content Innovation Cloud (CIC)?
1. Content Intelligence
What it is: Content intelligence helps organizations transform unstructured content into trusted business context that AI, automation, and employees can use to make better decisions. Through capabilities like knowledge discovery and contextual enrichment, organizations can move beyond simple search and create a richer understanding of their content, relationships, and business processes.
How it could benefit you: You and your team will spend less time digging for information and trudging through repetitive work and more time making smart decisions and uncovering new opportunities for further growth. Whether you’re solving problems, helping customers, or planning strategy, it gives you the tools to work smarter.
2. Content Capture and Processing
What it is: Content capture and processing uses AI to automate the intake of information from sources like invoices, emails, or forms into your systems, with great accuracy and minimal human intervention. It reads, sorts, and extracts the important details from documents, then sends that data where it needs to go.
How it could benefit you: Instead of chasing down paperwork or re-entering the same data in multiple places, you can let automation handle it. You’ll speed up approvals, reduce errors, and free up time for more important, enjoyable work. Whether you’re in finance, HR, healthcare, or any other department, this tech helps you get accurate information into your systems quickly so you can make decisions and move forward without delays.
3. Process Automation
What is Process Automation: Hyland’s process automation streamlines business operations by routing content, automating workflows, and enriching data with AI-driven insights. It also enhances productivity through tools like robotic process automation (RPA), extensive system integrations, and real-time reporting dashboards, providing real-time visibility and control over content and performance.
How it could benefit you: You’ll spend less time chasing down approvals, entering data, or fixing errors. Process automation helps you get work done faster, with fewer mistakes and less stress. Whether you’re managing cases, processing invoices, or handling customer requests, it keeps things moving and gives you insights into how your processes are performing for continuous improvement.
4. Governance
What it is: Governance provides tools to secure and organize your content and manage compliance and risk from the moment it enters your systems until it’s no longer needed. With tools like automated retention schedules, legal holds, and audit trails, governance makes it easy for you to stay in control.
How it could benefit you: Instead of worrying about where content lives or whether it’s secure, governance gives you peace of mind. You’ll respond to audits or legal requests faster, reduce the risk of data leaks, and avoid costly compliance issues. It also helps you find what you need quickly and ensures that outdated or risky content doesn’t stick around longer than it should.
5. Content Management
What it is: Content management helps organizations keep all their documents, data, and files organized, easy to find, and secure with sophisticated data security protocols and controls in place. Instead of digging through folders or switching between systems, you get one place to access what you need. It works across departments and devices, too, so everyone can stay connected and productive, no matter where they are.
How it could benefit you: Whether you’re working in the office or remotely, Hyland content management gives you a simple, secure way to get your job done without the hassle of outdated systems or scattered content. As a result, you’ll save time by avoiding duplicated work and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing your sensitive data is protected and compliant, and the right people have access to the right information.
6. Application Development
What it is: The Hyland Content Innovation Cloud offers application development, which lets you build custom tools and solutions that integrate with OnBase and help your team work more efficiently. With low-code and no-code platforms, you don’t need to be a developer to create apps that solve real business problems. You can use drag-and-drop tools and prebuilt templates to build secure, scalable applications.
How it could benefit you: You’ll be able to respond quickly when business needs change without waiting on IT. Whether it’s a new workflow, a dashboard, or a tool to manage customer data, you can build it yourself or collaborate with your team.
It’s quick, too: Naviant customers have been able to create less complex applications in just a few hours (see story #1 in this blog to learn more) and more complex ones in a couple months (see story #3 in this blog to learn more). This means faster results, less pressure on developers, and more flexibility to create solutions that actually fit how you work.
7. Systems Integration
What it is: CIC uses content federation to connect information across Hyland and non-Hyland repositories, business applications, and cloud environments without requiring large-scale migration projects. This allows organizations to unify structured and unstructured content while preserving existing governance and security controls.
How it could benefit you: Your content becomes accessible across systems and applications, creating a stronger foundation for automation, AI initiatives, knowledge discovery, and future agentic workflows while improving consistency and reducing information silos.
8. Collaboration
What it is: CIC supports real-time collaboration with built-in tools for secure sharing, commenting, and co-authoring in real time.
How it could benefit you: Your teams stay aligned, whether they’re remote, hybrid, or in-office, and your content stays up to date and easy to find, no matter how many employees are working on it.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hyland Content Management
What is Hyland enterprise content management?
Hyland enterprise content management describes the tools inside the Content Innovation Cloud that unify how your organization captures, stores, and governs content across departments and systems, backed by AI-driven automation.
What is Hyland ECM?
Hyland ECM is the core document and data management. It now lives inside the broader Content Innovation Cloud, which adds AI-enabled process automation and cross-system integration on top of core content management.
What is Hyland Content Management?
Hyland Content Management keeps your documents, data, and files organized, searchable, and secure across departments and devices, giving your team one place to work no matter where they’re located.
What AI adoption challenges does the Hyland Content Innovation Cloud solve?
Most organizations struggle to scale AI because their content is fragmented across systems, lacks business context, and isn’t readily available inside operational workflows. The Content Innovation Cloud addresses these challenges by connecting content across repositories, enriching it with trusted business context, preserving governance controls, and making information available where decisions and work happen. This creates a stronger foundation for enterprise AI, intelligent automation, and emerging agentic use cases.
Ready to AI-Enable Your Content, Apps, & Processes Where They Are?
The Hyland Content Innovation Cloud helps organizations turn disconnected content into a strategic asset for AI, automation, and intelligent decision-making. By connecting content, context, and processes, CIC creates a foundation for scalable innovation without requiring you to replace the technologies you already trust.
Whether you’re just starting your intelligent automation journey or looking to take it to the next level, CIC offers the tools to get there and the scalability to grow with you.
If you’re curious about how CIC could fit into your organization’s strategy, drop a comment below. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
