What is Intelligent Automation? Why is it Important?

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Written By Haisam Abdel Malak
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Organizations require an end-to-end advanced automated solution to assist increase agility, improve customer experience, and boost productivity in this era of fast-moving business changes and Intelligent automation (IA) is currently changing the way businesses are conducted in virtually every sector of the economy.

Intelligent automation is the practice of automating business processes that require decision making via the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and RPA to increase operational efficiency.

IA combines cognitive and artificial intelligence technologies, including natural language processing and machine learning with automation to build smart processes and workflows that learn and adapt as they go.

Intelligent automation helps in the full automation of processes that include non-routine tasks that often require human intervention to complete a business transaction. These systems can handle semi-structured data (purchase orders, invoices, and so on) as well as unstructured data (videos, emails, voice messages, and so on), and they can learn by monitoring human behavior.

In this post, we will explain intelligent automation, offer examples and explore why executives today believe it to be necessary for any business.

IA Technologies

Organizations are expecting to accomplish more with less in today’s hyper-competitive global economic climate. Intelligent automation provides the potential to alter organizational structures and simplify complicated procedures.

As previously mentioned, IA is not a stand-alone solution, but rather a collection of advanced technologies that operate together to accomplish the desired business outcomes.

The following are the primary technologies employed:

#1- Smart Workflow

A business process management system should enable the modeling, development, editing, and execution of the company’s business processes, as well as the collection of data and analytics.

Business process management tools allow for the integration of human and machine tasks. It aids in the automation of workflows in order to improve the efficiency, transparency, and consistency of business processes.

#2- Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is what empowers the brain to automate processes. AI enables digital automated processes to make better-informed analytics-based decisions. It simply analyzes data faster than we do and learns from past decisions.

Other categories for artificial intelligence include Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Visual Recognition, Big Data, and so on.

Using cognitive technology helps in the analysis of both structured and unstructured data, as well as the improvement of decision making based on such data. It is, in a nutshell, the BRAIN of intelligent automation.

#3- Robotic Process Automation

RPA is the usage of computer programs known as software robots with advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence & machine learning to automate manual and repetitive human activities based on business rules.

These bots are an excellent complement to artificial intelligence, as RPA can employ AI insights to tackle more complicated tasks and use cases.

Employees may use these tools to record themselves doing these manual and tedious activities through many digital systems. Later, automated bots can mimic the reported behavior by communicating with programs in the same way as an employee does, but in a more effective and reliable manner.

These robots never get tired, always consistent, and make no mistakes.

Combining all of these RPA tools with seamless integration will assist businesses in streamlining operations, increasing agility, and becoming more competent.

#4- Computer Vision

This component is used to automatically extract text from images without any human intervention with high accuracy using OCR tools. This is needed to drive document-centric processes with full automation mechanism.

Benefits of Intelligent Automation

Benefits-of-Intelligent-Automation

Intelligent automation benefits include improved customer experience, increased process efficiency, cost savings, improved governance, and increased staff productivity.

The key intelligent automation benefits are:

1- Enhance decision making

Among the top intelligent automation benefits is the ability to enhance decision making.

As previously said, AI and ML play a vital role in the ecosystem, assisting with massive data analysis and value production.

Furthermore, it may learn from prior data-driven judgments and strive to always improve.

2- Improve regulatory compliance

One of the most significant intelligent automation benefits is the ability to improve compliance with different rules and regulations.

Most sectors are governed by various governmental laws and industry-specific regulatory regulations. Business rules and regulations, such as record retention and document disposition, may be automated with the aid of intelligent automation.

3- Provide faster customer service

Chatbots, also known as conversational AI, are an excellent illustration of how Intelligent Automation can enhance the customer experience.

Customers will be more loyal to your business if they receive the assistance they require quickly. Customers will receive significantly more rapid responses if better customer service is provided via chatbots or related procedures are automated.

4- Reduce costs and risks

Reducing costs is considered among the top intelligent automation benefits.

Automating your business processes will save money by reducing the amount of time employees have to do the job manually. Furthermore, as compared to people, bots make less mistakes when completing a task. Not to mention that they work nonstop for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Human mistake, regardless of sector, may be costly and time-consuming to repair. You will never have to deal with these errors again if you automate company operations.

5- Increase process efficiency

All organizations are seeking to improve the efficiency of their internal business processes.

Automated procedures will always operate to the same high quality, will never skip a step, and will improve transparency.

Among the list of intelligent automation benefits is that it can measure, audit, and monitor process execution while also suggesting ways to enhance it.

6- Increase employee satisfaction

When it is properly implemented inside your business, employees will be able to focus on more essential duties.

Manual repetitious activities are mechanized using AI and RPA, giving people more time to enhance their abilities.

Intelligent Automation Examples

Intelligent automation is already being used in the area of information management, assisting companies with the problems they encounter while managing their data.

Cognitive technology combined with automation can be beneficial to any IM solution.

Some of the primary advantages are listed below:

Automated Retention Of Documents

Due to the holding of sensitive and confidential information, it is important in specific businesses such as healthcare, banking, and human resources to remain compliant with rules and regulations.

These sectors can benefit from intelligent document automation to automate their document retention and destruction policies.

Leveraging IA can

  • Reduce Human Errors: By having bots execute tasks on a set timetable, automation helps improve compliance. A retention policy will be automatically implemented based on many variables such as document type..
  • Improved Compliance: Automating the deletion of electronic records would very certainly enhance compliance with various regulatory obligations. Companies must ensure that just the information that needs to be kept is available.

Intelligent Capture

The volume and format of information entering organizations are rising, necessitating us to collect it and maximize its worth.

The first step is to start collecting data as soon as we have it. We should be able to automatically and intelligently gather data by leveraging AI and ML, which are changing the game.

Intelligent document processing tools can be used to automate document automation by removing the need for document classification, manual data entry and sorting, and document analysis.

Our ability to effectively gather and integrate this information in a consistent manner into automated business processes is a critical component of a digital transformation strategy.

What’s the difference between IA and RPA?

Robotic process automation and intelligent automation are two different concepts that are used to streamline and automation business related processes to improve productivity. The first focuses on automating manual repetitive tasks such as data entry using software robots. IA involves the usage of multiple technologies as explained above to automate the complete process without any human intervention.

The Future of Intelligent Automation

Organizations may start building a genuine digital workforce capable of replicating many aspects of human cognition and judgment by adding artificial intelligence to automated operations.

Because our workforce is evolving at such a rapid pace, organizations must continue to innovate and leverage digital technology in order to become more nimble.

It is one of the technologies that can truly transform the way businesses operate and deliver on the early promises of automation—faster operations, cheaper costs, lower risk of mistake, and relieving people from the most monotonous activities.

With ever-increasing rivalry in mind, demand for advanced job automation technologies has grown, and it is likely to multiply in the future years.

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