What is Intelligent Automation?

In general, words like "Digital Transformation" have been overly vague and ambiguous, leaving businesses unsure where to begin, leading to dissatisfaction and failure. However, a comprehensive Digital Transformation will necessitate the use of more than one innovation. 

 

Thus, the term Intelligent Automation, which is essentially the automation of the company's processes (including corporate business processes using BPM and individual task processes using RPA), is endorsed by analytics and decisions taken by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

 

What is Intelligent Automation?

 

Automation is already a common technological idea for businesses, with many automating laborious, recurring operations to improve productivity. 

 

Robotics, AI, and other new technologies can perform human operations and operate autonomously by making judgments or interpreting data sans direct human intervention to add the intelligent feature.

 

As a result, Intelligent Automation is the combination of these "smart" technologies with automated systems to improve process management. Intelligent automation (IA) is defined by EY as "the interaction of robotics with diverse components from various developing technologies."

 

(Must read - Intelligent Process Automation)

 

The Four Pillars of Intelligent Automation

 

As easy as the concept may appear, we are confronted with the standard-issue: "Okay, I understand, but how do I begin to implement this transformation?"

 

Intelligent Automation, on the other hand, is here to stay since it gives tangible answers; in brief, it consists of a successful and integrated application of four important technologies, so let's split them down and explain their roles:

 

1. Management of Business Processes (BPM)

 

BPM is a technique for process automation that encompasses the proper collaboration of people, systems, and data. BPM's goal is to guarantee that the operational and business process infrastructure is strong. 

 

As a result, it serves as a foundational layer in the organisation, automating the behaviour of complex processes that require human intervention in entering data and decision-making process, its use of structures at specific points such as calculations or implementations, action control, and reporting systems and storage.

 

2. Robotic Processes Automation (RPA)

 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a technique that tries to eliminate human participation in computer systems, particularly in repeated operations that vary very little from scratch each time.

 

RPA generally interacts with "high level" services, which are technology layers at the graphical interface level, rather than machine code or computer code. Simply described, it is a sort of software that mimics the real-world interaction that a human has with traditional computer programmes.

 

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

 

The replication of human intellect by machines is known as artificial intelligence. In other words, it is the study that seeks to develop systems smart enough to learn and think in the same way as humans do. Other terms for AI include Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Visual Recognition, Big Data, and so on.

 

Although it is a wide concept with numerous levels (from fundamental automation to complicated virtual assistants), it is worth emphasising the following benefits in today's corporate environment:

 

• Identifying patterns based on past experience.
• Making sound decisions.
• Analytics that are prescriptive and anticipatory.
• Enhancing the customer experience
• Integrations

 

Because each system or programme has its own quirks, connecting and integrating them is one of a company's major challenges.

 

They often provide an Application Programming Interface (API) through which to communicate, which is based primarily on a protocol such as SOAP (as used in Web Services) or REST (based on HTTP protocol). Integrations often need code, although, with a platform like AuraQuantic. 

 

Also, you may have local connectors (for example, with SAP or Dynamics CRM) and establish connections based on SOAP or REST without requiring commands and in a fast and easy manner, in relation to controlling BPM processes.

 

(Check out - AI used in Marketing Automation)

 

Advantages of Intelligent Automation for Business

 

Intelligent automation may assist organisations, particularly activities where data must be maintained, transported from one sector of the company to another, or presented to a client, such as automated customer requests. These procedures would take substantially longer and be more prone to mistakes if not intelligently automated.

 

Many IA using companies enable organisations to save time and money by automating their business operations and integrating with intelligent technology. Here are several examples:

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Advantages of Intelligent Automation in Business

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• Customer service in-store

• Customer demands made online

• Onboarding of new customers

• Employee orientation

• Processing of insurance claims

• Origination of loans

• Payments for claims

• Manufacturing that is smart

 

Robotic Process Automation vs Intelligent Automation

 

RPA is used to automate specific operations and handle discrete problems within business operations, such as transporting data from one place to another in the absence of an API. It is mostly utilized to eliminate human effort from repetitive jobs such as data input.

 

The most significant distinction between Robotic Process Automation and Intelligent Automation is that RPA is a response to only one aspect of employing technology to enhance an organization's end-to-end process. It is critical to emphasise that if RPA is viewed as a panacea, it will fail to achieve the greater purpose altogether.

 

Intelligent Business Process Automation solutions are used by organisations focusing on Intelligent Automation and the edge process to control the flow of work between platforms, people, and applications. 

 

This frequently entails utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) to optimize the effectiveness of business procedures and learn from data in order to make more informed decisions in the future.

 

The Business Process Automation technology (also known as digital process automation) functions as an orchestrator for the whole process, initiating stages that can be performed by an RPA tool or smart records management.

 

 

What technology does Intelligent Automation (IA) make use of?

 

IA combines RPA software, which aids in the automation of historically labour-intensive, rule-based processes that do not require physical judgement or involvement, with technologies such as artificial intelligence such as:

 

• Artificial intelligence (AI)—Computer systems that replicate human intellect; AI examines data quicker than humans and learns from previous decisions.

 

• Machine learning—A sort of AI software that uses algorithms to detect patterns in structured data and generate accurate predictions based on past data.

 

• Computer vision—Technology tools that turn scanned documentation or photographs into text, such as OCR.

 

• Natural language processing (NLP)- It refers to software that allows a computer to perceive, interpret, and modify spoken or written communication.

 

• Process mining- It is an analytical strategy to assess corporate processes as they are, followed by collecting and enhancing processes obtained from data analysis.

 

 

4 Business Intelligent Automation Risks

 

• Failure of a business process

 

• Data erasure

 

• Breach of data

 

• squandered funds and efforts

 

Risk #1 - Failure of  Business Process

 

Intelligent automation is very much about efficiency and fast(er) operations, but this isn't always the case. Merging numerous technologies, particularly advanced AI-based software, creates tremendous hurdles in change systems and information governance, which will result in workflow failures if not addressed. 

 

You may disrupt a downstream process if you halt or change data transmission inside established processes. By implementing a solid design and change management programme, you may avoid business process failure.

 

Risk #2 - Data Loss

 

Data is being generated, accessed, and stored at speeds we never could have predicted in the past. And, because machine learning consumes the vast bulk of this data, data loss is a serious concern. Consider automating analytics and business intelligence by processing real-time transactional data flows.

 

You have advanced technologies logged into numerous programmes that collect data to deliver business crucial information for decision-making. Following an examination, it was revealed that a password reset happened and that data collecting had ceased some time ago. 

 

That data is either lost permanently or will be impossible to re-incorporate. Create an alerting procedure that immediately detects process and performance issues to avoid this sort of data loss.

 

Risk #3 - Breach of Data into Your Intelligent Network

 

Bots and other computer programs will also provide network login information. Subjecting an admin-level password would almost certainly result in tragedy. Because you'll be adding new applications to your automation toolkit, you must pay close consideration to where the extracted information will be kept and processed.

 

If you are utilising an intelligent information processing technology to extract data from such an insurance settlement that will be "picked up" by automation, you must guarantee that the data is protected throughout the process. 

 

When integrating numerous technologies into your business intelligence automation environment, you must consider information security.

 

Risk #4 - Squandered Funds and Efforts

 

Consider spending a significant amount of money to develop a successful mix of technologies. Only to find out at the conclusion of the project that it was all for naught since a vendor's fundamental software upgrade had just been issued, and it fixed your problem.

 

As a result, before assuming that you have to construct something, talk with all suppliers involved in the automation project and evaluate product development roadmaps and beta programmes.

 

Intelligent automation is developed as a concept connected to digitalization, but with the benefit of being more defined and proposing a practical solution by merging four branches of technology: BPM, RPA, AI, and integration.

 

Intelligent technology will eventually give rise to new innovations and uses, many of which we haven't yet begun to consider. Continuous progress will open new opportunities, and innovative approaches to technologies will help steer development in constructive, strong ways.