Intelligent automation

Intelligent automation is software technology that incorporates AI and ML to automate complex workflows. It can be perceived as an extension of the traditional RPA, geared to broaden its capabilities. In the past, RPA was used to automate relatively straightforward, repetitive tasks such as data entry. When combined with AI, RPA takes on a whole new dimension of possibilities.

Let’s say you regularly need to perform a process that involves multiple internal systems and third-party web apps. Let’s also suppose one step of this multi-step process requires you to read and understand documents. With traditional RPA, you could potentially automate one step—or possibly part of a step—of this extensive process, but you couldn’t automate the entire process from end to end.

Thanks to the addition of AI, intelligent automation gives you the power to automate these more complex processes. It can even automate tasks that previously required human involvement, like document understanding and unstructured data analysis.

What’s the difference between intelligent automation and smart automation?

As mentioned, terms like “smart” and “intelligent” are often used interchangeably when describing emerging technologies. More often than not, however, they mean the same thing, and the case is no different with intelligent and smart automation. Both intelligent and smart automation refer to the same concept—automation empowered by AI and ML.

When trying to understand intelligent automation, it can help to think about it in terms of the various elements that make it up. In the simplest sense, intelligent automation can be broken down into three different components: AI, RPA, and business process management (BPM).

AI and ML

AI and ML are what make intelligent automation, well, intelligent. With AI and ML, you can automate tasks that once needed to be performed by humans, allowing for wider, more complex automations. Better yet, AI can even help you identify tasks that are suitable for automation. Process mining and task mining analyze your processes to determine which steps should be automated. From there, generative AI can even help create automations.

RPA

RPA plays an essential role in intelligent automation. With RPA, you can easily build, deploy, and manage software robots that mimic human interactions with digital systems. These software robots can perform keystrokes, navigate digital systems, and carry out a wide range of defined actions. However, when boosted by AI, RPA can automate far more complex tasks than it was previously capable of.

BPM

With intelligent automation, you can create complex automations that connect different departments, systems, and apps. Having this broad view of your business processes enables you to see where automations can best be applied to maximize your productivity. BPM gives you that comprehensive understanding of your interconnected business processes.

Intelligent automation is a rather broad term that can be applied to several areas of an automation lifecycle. To get a better understanding of how it works, we’ll take a look at how intelligent automation applies to these different areas.

Discover

Before automations are created or employed, you first need to figure out which processes can and should be automated. With AI-powered process mining and task mining, you can discover the highest ROI opportunities for continuous process optimization.

Automate

Once suitable processes have been identified, stakeholders can create the necessary automations to enact them. While this largely falls to those with coding knowledge, end-to-end automation platforms with low-code tools enable employees without a technical background to create automations. And AI-powered testing tools verify whether your new automations work as intended or if you need to make adjustments.

Operate

Once you’ve created and tested your new automations, you're ready to implement them into the appropriate workflows. These automations provide a foundation on which you can continuously build and deploy new automations, enterprise-wide. Now, you can turn your attention to areas that require human input and creative problem solving.

At its most basic level, intelligent automation increases productivity. Since it takes over processes typically performed by humans, you have more time to focus on higher-value efforts. But the benefits of intelligent automation extend so much further. Here are just a few of the many benefits intelligent automation provides:

Reduced costs

Intelligent automation reduces the number of resources—be it time or people—needed to complete a task. Therefore, your business can accomplish the same goals faster and at a fraction of the cost. And intelligent automation is scalable with your business. As your business needs develop, the more processes you can automate, the greater ROI you see.

Improved accuracy

Robots aren’t prone to human error or distraction. As such, they can carry out a lot of tasks faster than humans and with greater accuracy. That means less time spent fixing mistakes and playing catch up afterwards.

Improved customer experience

At the end of the day, more effective and efficient internal processes lead to a better overall customer experience. Whether you’re getting your products to market faster or speeding up responses to customer feedback, you’re passing the value on to your customers.

One of the best parts of intelligent automation is its adaptability. Whether you work in manufacturing or marketing, in sales or in human resources, odds are you can benefit from intelligent automation. Here are just a few common use cases for intelligent automation:

Customer feedback response

When you work in customer service, you need to be able to respond to customer feedback quickly. Intelligent automation can help customer service reps sort through customer feedback and draft responses.

For example, let’s say a business receives roughly 1,000 customer comments a day across various channels. It would take a human employee—even a team of employees—quite some time to sift through every piece of feedback. With intelligent automation, robots can instantly input feedback into a sentiment analysis program, which sorts the comments as positive, negative, or neutral.

If any feedback requires further attention, other robots can send it on to a human team member to handle. And if a response to the feedback is required, generative AI can help you draft a response based on the original comment.

Hiring and onboarding

Hiring and onboarding are things every business needs to deal with, no matter which industry they’re in. Although essential, these processes can be time-consuming and are often bogged down with tedious little tasks.

For example, during the hiring process, you need to sort through countless resumes for relevance. With document understanding, robots act as the first line of evaluation. They analyze the content of resumes before sending suitable applicants on to a hiring manager. generative AI can also help hiring managers draft interview questions based on the applicant’s experience.

Once you’ve hired a new employee, intelligent automation can help with the onboarding process as well. Software robots can send out introductory documents to the new hire, including any forms the employee needs to fill out. When those forms are returned, robots can input the data into the necessary systems and applications. Robots can also schedule any orientations and training sessions required for the new employee.

Order fulfillment

If you work for a business that sells physical products, you know just how important it is to fulfill orders on time. Intelligent automation helps you do just that. When a customer sends an email with a signed order form, a software robot extracts the data from the purchase order into the system. Another robot alerts an account executive and marks the deal as “closed won” in an internal customer relationship management (CRM) application. This “closed won” event triggers another robot, which creates a sales order and sends it to fulfillment.