In one sentence
An integration is a connection that lets two systems share information or trigger actions in each other.
The simple model
Companies run many separate systems, and work often needs several of them at once. An integration is the wiring that connects them, so a change or a request in one can reach another without a person copying data by hand.
Integrations are usually built on APIs and webhooks: the API lets one system ask another for data or actions, and the webhook lets one system announce events. The integration is the working connection you build from those pieces.
Why you care
Most useful AI workflows need to reach more than one system: read from one, decide, and write to another. Those connections are integrations. Whether the required integrations are possible often decides whether a workflow can be built at all.
Integrations are also how you remove duplicate data entry. Instead of a person re-typing a customer into a second system, an integration creates the record automatically.
Not every integration is easy
Some systems connect cleanly through a well-documented API. Others are older, closed, or have no safe way for software to read or write them. This is a practical constraint to discover early, because a workflow that assumes an integration exists can stall entirely if it does not.
There are also ready-made tools, often called workflow automation platforms, that connect common systems without custom code. They are useful for standard connections; unusual systems may still need a custom integration.
A small example
An orders workflow needed to read stock from a warehouse system and write orders into an ERP. The warehouse system had a clean API; the ERP had an older, limited one. Confirming both integrations before building saved the team from designing a workflow the ERP could not actually support.
What this does not solve
An integration moves data and actions between systems; it does not decide which system is correct or keep the data meaningful. Decide the source of truth first, or an integration will simply copy the wrong data faster.
