What is intelligent automation?

Intelligent automation (IA), combines robotic automation (RPA), with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics. This creates end-to-end business processes which think, learn, and adapt themselves. Hyper-automation and intelligent process automation are other names for intelligent automation. Intelligent automation (IA) is also known as hyper-automation and intelligent process automation (IPA). Intelligent automation can be used by insurance providers to make payments, predict rates and meet compliance requirements.

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Intelligent automation: The 3 components

Intelligent automation is made up of three cognitive technologies. These components are combined to create a solution that drives technology and business transformation.

1. The most important component of intelligent automation is artificial Intelligence or AI. Businesses can use machine learning and complex algorithms for analyzing structured and unstructured data to create knowledge bases and make predictions. This is the heart of IA.
2. The second component of intelligent automation is business processes management (BPM) . Also known as business workflow automation, To provide greater flexibility and consistency in business processes, business process management automates workflows. In many industries, business process management is used to improve interaction and engagement and streamline processes.
3. Robotic automation (RPA is the third component of IA. Robotic process automation is the use of software robots or bots to perform back-office tasks such as filling out forms or extracting data. These bots can complement artificial intelligence as RPA can use AI insights to manage more complicated tasks and use cases.

These three components are combined to create a transformative solution. It streamlines and simplifies workflows, which ultimately leads to a better customer experience.

What technologies can IA use?

IA is a combination of RPA software (which automates labor-intensive tasks that are rules-based and don’t need human intervention) with intelligence technologies like:

• Artificial intelligence–Computer systems that simulate human intelligence, AI analyzes data faster than people and learns from past choices
• Machine Learning–A type AI software that identifies patterns in structured data and makes accurate predictions using historical information to predict outcomes
• OCR is a computer vision–Technology tool that converts scanned photos or documents into text.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP). – Software that allows a computer to understand, interpret, and manipulate written or spoken language
• Process mining–An analytic approach to diagnosing business processes as they exist. Then, capturing and improving them based on data analysis.

Intelligent automation has many benefits

Intelligent automation platforms offer many benefits across industries because they use large amounts of data and precise calculations to analyze the results and then implement them into their businesses.

IA helps to create flexible, resilient and modern business operating models by supporting the design of end-to-end processes. IA can enhance the human experience and encourage people to create new business value. Employees can also be freed from repetitive tasks that can be done by machines.

Collaboration between IT and business functions is key to effective IA. They must work together to evaluate the effectiveness of current processes and then integrate systems to bring about sustainable and scalable changes. Employees must be part of the transformation process in order for an IA initiative success. They will see firsthand the benefits and create business value by adopting a new method of working.

These are the key benefits:

• Increase productivity and reduce costs by increasing the workforce. Automating processes and systems can be automated to increase production. IA allows you to scale quickly and without increasing risk or compromising the quality of your existing workforce. This capability is proving to be a boon for business leaders, who are seeing higher production yields and a better ROI.
• Increase accuracy through consistent processes, which improves quality: Intelligent automation is the use of artificial intelligence to drive decision making and bring consistency to repetitive tasks.
• Enhance customer experience: Providing a better quality product that is more reliable and can be brought to market quicker or getting back to customers quickly (or even immediately) gives the customer a more enjoyable experience, which in turn creates a competitive advantage for your company.
• Ensure compliance and regulation with confidence. Many industries must adhere to certain regulatory policies. Intelligent automation can use its task automation features for a more consistent approach towards compliance.

Intelligent Automation Use Cases

• Manage cloud and virtual machines. IA can spin up or down cloud-based and virtual machines based on dynamic, real-time demands. This will reduce the number of machines that are idle at any given time. This will result in cost optimization and a more efficient environment. It also dramatically improves SLAs.
• Resource allocation. Environments get more complex to manage as they grow in size. Instead of IT staff searching through thousands (or hundreds) of servers to find the right resources for each job, IA can ensure that those resources are sufficient and meet the required requirements.
• Scheduling jobs. The IA tool can help you schedule your jobs around heavy traffic periods. This allows you to anticipate large jobs coming down the pipeline and reduces the likelihood of a bottleneck.
• Protecting SLAs. Not all jobs are important. An IA tool allows users to define the importance of a job and instruct the system on how to reserve the resources ahead of time. Although the critical job may not be needed, the IA will make sure that all resources are available.

Why Intelligence Is Important for Automation

Long-term business growth is possible only because of three factors:

• Digitalization
• The IT Skills Gap
• Business Requirements

Digital tools have become more useful as digital technology advances. Our computers and mobile devices allow us to schedule meetings, create end-of-day reports and process customer claims. We also have the ability to complete many other important business tasks.

The proliferation of digital tools, called digitization, has been a boon to business. It has increased efficiency, lowered overhead and reduced manual errors.

However, this new wave of digital tools has put an added strain on IT. IT must now manage distributed, dynamic environments that depend on multiple technologies and providers, rather than just maintain a mainframe. IT must manage a lot more digital processes, apps, platforms, and tools in 2019 than 1999.

Digitalization has created a data explosion. IT must manage that data.

IT’s responsibilities are expanding, and so has the demand for IT staff. You would think that more work means more workers. In a perfect scenario, yes.

There has been an IT skills shortage for many years, with the demand for IT workers outpacing the supply. Many of the positions IT teams must fill — automation designers, cloud architects, GPU developers– were not even possible five years ago. No one was trained for them.

Organizations still rely on IT to manage critical infrastructures, create new digital capabilities and drive digital transformation across the company. These are essential goals for business success.

To be competitive in today’s market, an organization must be able quickly to change business models, develop new products and services, and scale up new technologies and tools on short notice.

These critical capabilities are what business leaders rely on IT for.

To support an organization and keep up with market changes, IT must create flexible, adaptable infrastructures that can respond quickly to changing business requirements. IT can use intelligent automation to manage manual tasks that are time-consuming and give them the time they need to do high-value tasks.

intelligent automation can help IT increase job success rates, reduce idle machines and achieve more with less resources.

It is crucial to be able dynamically manage an environment in order to provide scalable resources. It is essential for maintaining and managing the expanding number of digital tools businesses depend on. IT has enough to do: IT can’t handle everything.

Intelligent automation improves efficiency, reduces overhead costs, increases job success rates, and gives IT the time and flexibility they need to keep up with ever-changing business requirements.

Intelligent automation applications

Intelligent automation automates manual tasks and legacy systems that are resource-intensive, expensive, and prone for human error. IA can be applied to different industries and provide efficiencies in various areas of the business.

• Auto: Intelligent automation can bring significant improvements to the automotive industry. Manufacturers can use intelligent automation to better predict and adjust production to meet changing demand and supply. They can improve efficiency and reduce error rates in production, support and procurement. Robots can reduce manual labor, improve defect detection, and provide a better product to customers at lower costs. For example, the Volkswagen engine plant in Germany employs “collaborative robotics”, which work in conjunction with the production team to complete a physically demanding stage of the engine assembly. This reduces injury, speeds processes, improves accuracy, and relieves employees of physical strain.
• Life Sciences – Drug manufacturing is extremely controlled and requires accurate calibration of equipment and measurement. This requires extensive data collection, processing and analysis. Without reliable analysis and results, a drug trial is not considered to be successful. Manual methods can lead to errors in calculation and require considerable resources and manpower. Intelligent automation, however, allows for faster and more efficient production. This is evident in the record-breaking production of Covid-19 vaccines. Before the advent of artificial intelligence and its resulting efficiencies, it took 40+ scientists with doctorate degrees more than 25 years to find a single marketable drug.
• Healthcare The healthcare industry uses intelligent automation with natural-language processing (NLP), to provide a consistent approach for data collection, analysis and diagnosis. Chatbots can be used in remote healthcare appointments to reduce the need for human intervention. It also takes less time to diagnose.
• Insurance With IA, the insurance industry can eliminate the need to manually calculate rates or pay for premiums. It can also simplify the processing of paperwork such as appraisals and claims. Insurance companies can also adhere to compliance regulations easier by using intelligent automation. They can also calculate the insurance rate and risk for an individual or entity.

Future of IA

Intelligent automation is a valuable tool in today’s world, regardless of industry. Businesses can automate repetitive tasks using IA to reduce costs and ensure consistency in their workflows. Digital transformation has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has prompted more infrastructure investment to support it. Roles will continue to change as remote work increases. Low-level workers will be redirected to higher-level tasks and implement these solutions. To maintain motivation in the workforce, middle managers will need to shift their attention to the more human aspects of their jobs. The automation will create skills gaps in the workforce and employees will have to adapt to constantly changing work environments. These transitions can be supported by middle management in a way that reduces anxiety and ensures that employees are resilient to these changes. Companies that resist intelligent automation will be unable to compete in their markets.