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Building the agent is the easy part. Keeping it working is the hard part.
Going live was the win you celebrated. Staying live is the one nobody planned for. Processes change, agents drift and people revert. The Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ owns what happens next.
Process expert first. AI-fluent second.
The Forward Deployed Orchestrator™(FDO) is an AI-fluent process and change expert embedded directly in a client’s operation. Rather than building a solution and stepping away, the FDO runs the AI-enabled process in the live environment, continuously improving performance and owning a clear, measurable outcome.
It is accountable for what traditional deployments miss: driving adoption so the ‘new way’ becomes the only way, optimising performance across the combined human-and-agent workforce, and identifying opportunities to expand into new use cases from within day-to-day operations. While a forward deployed engineer builds and integrates the AI agent, the FDO ensures it delivers sustained results in practice.
Capita FDOs complete the forward deployed model with a key owner of outcomes and the ability to orchestrate across complex workflows and human/AI hybrid teams for maximum effectiveness.
Better outcomes in the front, middle and back office
We practice and perfect what we preach and have invested in upskilling our process and change experts to orchestrate for better outcomes. For example, the long process of draft strategy development that used to take 6 weeks now utilises a range of agent under the watchful eye of a strategy expert and can deliver the same result in just 14 hours.
The model works and scales well into large, complex operations:
44,500 automatable actions mapped
A four week process intelligence study of Capita’s own Accounts Payable operation traced underlying performance variation to its root causes and mapped 44,500 automatable actions. We ran it on ourselves first, applying AI within the live service to strengthen flow, improve consistency and support better outcomes.
Four days to 11 seconds
An AI operator that reads documents, runs 29 authenticity checks, and can only clear within defined rules or refer to a human, took a good application from four days to about 11 seconds, with full auditability.
43% cut in screening time
Capita’s own recruitment operation — the first B2B Agentforce deployment in Europe — saved over 1,000 hours in the first four months and cut candidate screening time by 43%.
6.5 hours saved per case
Working as one automation team with HMRC, Capita unified data across more than 20 systems and now processes over 18 million cases a year, saving up to 6.5 hours on complex tax cases, freeing 105 FTE for higher-value work.
Observe. Deploy. Orchestrate. Operate.
Four engagement plays guide you from understanding the work to taking full ownership of outcomes, with the fourth designed as a continuous, ongoing discipline.
1
Observe
Process intelligence on how the work happens: people, systems, data, exceptions and hand-offs. Continues throughout - the always-on engine - ensuring the agents keep improving against how the work really runs.
2
Deploy
Design the operating model, then build and ship the agent-enabled workflows, bringing in the trusted partner technology the outcome needs before orchestration and integrating it with what you already run.
3
Orchestrate
Compose people, agents, platforms, rules and exceptions into one working system in the live environment. This is where the Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ takes ownership so you can move to the 'Operate' stage.
4
Operate
Run it and own the outcome. Refine the agents against live process, drive adoption so the new way becomes the only way, and stay accountable for results. Four decades of complex operations now running agent-enabled.
Paired with the AI Catalyst Stack
A layered architecture, launched October 2025, with governance embedded throughout.
| Process Intelligence | Capture, mining, conformance, ROI: a digital view of how work flows, surfacing bottlenecks, compliance risk and automation opportunities. |
| Low-code & Pro-code agents | Assemble agents, workflows and copilots on hyperscaler technology, plus a secure foundation for custom AI services and domain models. |
| Orchestration & Integration | MCP, A2A, API mesh and connectors link legacy and current estates so data flows securely across channels and platforms in real time. |
| Data Management & Intelligence | Lakehouse, pipelines and a semantic layer unify operational and analytical data: quicker insight, automated risk scoring. |
| Cross-cutting: Identity · Security · Governance · FinOps | Identity, RBAC, audit, data residency and cost controls, built for public and regulated markets. |
Designed to work with the platforms you already run, we build on your existing environment and the investment made by hyperscalers, adding our own accelerators to support delivery. This means no need to replace what is already working, and no dependency on proprietary solutions.
Helping you overcome the barriers to better outcomes
Every organisation is at a different stage with AI. Whether you are finding a starting point, trying to scale from pilot, or managing a growing estate without clear oversight, we can help you move forward with confidence.
You're 3× more likely to succeed buying and integrating proven AI than building it yourself.
MIT found that buying from specialist vendors and partnering succeeds about 67% of the time, while internal builds succeed only a third as often. MIT, GenAI Divide, 2025
Common questions
What is a Forward Deployed Orchestrator™?
Capita's own operating model for agentic AI: a process and change expert, AI-fluent, who embeds in your operation to run an AI-enabled process, keep it improving long after go-live, and is accountable for the business outcome, native to the platform you already run.
How is it different from a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE)?
The FDE builds the engine: deploys, configures and integrates the agents, then exits when the build is stable. The Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ drives the car: operates the live process, continuously tunes the agents, manages the change and owns the outcome. You need both.
Is it tied to one platform?
No. Platform-agnostic and native to the platform you already run (Salesforce Agentforce, Microsoft Copilot, AWS). Capita brings its IP as accelerators, not a proprietary stack, so there is no vendor lock-in.
Who created the Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ model?
Capita introduced the Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ publicly as its operating model for running agentic AI in regulated middle- and back-office operations.
What does a Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ do after go-live?
After go-live the agent needs constant refinement. The Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ tunes the agents to the live, changing process, drives adoption, manages the change, and is accountable for a measurable outcome.
How is an engagement priced?
Flexibly. We match the commercial model to the client: time-and-materials, a managed service, gain-share, or fully outcome-based.
Book an Agent Discovery Workshop
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© 2026 Capita plc. Forward Deployed Orchestrator™ is Capita's operating model for agentic AI in regulated operations.
Capita is an outsourcer, helping clients across the public and private sectors run complex business processes more efficiently. Operating across 8 countries, we support primarily UK and European clients with people-based services underpinned by market-leading technology.