This means that the “future of work” is arriving fast, disrupting traditional business processes and ways of thinking. What’s more, the future involves a great deal of automation. IT research and advisory firm Gartner predicts that 3 out of 10 jobs will become automated by 2025, redefining the very nature of work.
Automation has traditionally been restricted to tasks that are highly repetitive, predictable, and rules-based. However, the latest advances in artificial intelligence and processing power have enabled increasingly complex activities to be automated as well. Robotic software agents can leverage machine learning and natural language processing technologies to make better judgments about what to do in an unfamiliar situation.
In conjunction with human workers, intelligent automation software can support and extend your employees’ capabilities, helping them become more efficient and discover new business insights. Gartner also predicts that for all the manual tasks that AI will take over, it will actually open new doors for your employees: creating more jobs than it eliminates.
By freeing up your employees from tedious manual tasks, you can allow them to focus on high-level, strategic activities that require a uniquely human touch and that benefit the business as a whole. Meanwhile, you’ll see major improvements to the accuracy of your processes whilst still cutting costs. The cost of a robotic process automation (RPA) can be anywhere from $2,000 to $15,000—a fraction of the salary of a human employee.
Of course, intelligent automation can’t arrive at your business overnight. Transitioning from an entirely human workforce to one in which humans and robots work side-by-side must be a gradual process. However, the vast majority of companies find that the benefits of intelligent automation far outweigh the effort required to implement it within their organization, so start with a test run by implementing small automation projects, and then move to a company-wide deployment as you grow more comfortable.