What is intelligent automation?
For most companies, the outcome of intelligent automation is more meaningful than its actual definition. (All of the above results are real—you can read about them here!) But the more you understand what intelligent automation is and how it works, the easier it will be to identify use cases that will produce the most impactful results for you.
Keep reading to learn more about intelligent automation, how it relates to robotic process automation (RPA), and the ways in which companies in all industries are using it to gain a competitive advantage.
See for yourself how the Nividous intelligent automation platform works.
A concise intelligent automation definition is:
The application of enhanced technology tools (such as computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, and others) to a complex process to automate it from beginning to end, for purposes of reducing human effort and increasing efficiency.
To further explain this concept, it helps to examine it in relation to RPA.
Robotic process automation has been around for decades but has become really popular in the last few years. It is essentially a way to automate mundane, repetitive, rule-driven tasks that are normally done by people—tasks you can teach a bot to do instead of a human. In RPA, automations (sometimes referred to as “bots”) are developed through an easy to use visual design interface that requires knowledge of the business process that will be automated. The bot can make decisions or follow rules that are based on clear conditions: “If a particular condition (or set of conditions) exists, then do this.” For example, an insurance company would benefit from an RPA bot that automatically copies and pastes data from customer contact forms into various processing systems.
On the surface, that may seem like no big deal; haven’t computers done things like that all along? But the secret sauce of RPA is in how it gets done.
Unlike the creation of typical computer programs, you don’t need skilled programmers who know a variety of programming languages, understand how to build systems from scratch, and grasp how to work with other systems. RPA doesn’t require the involvement of any programmers. You train the bots to do the work the same way humans would do it via the user interface. If you know how a process works from a human perspective, then you can build the automation. All you need to understand is: How are your people currently doing the work? Then, you teach a bot to do it the same way.
RPA has proven to be enormously successful for many of the companies that have deployed it, particularly in light of the impact of COVID-19. (For some interesting stats on RPA results, take a look here.) But there are only so many tasks you can accomplish by narrowly focusing on automating using RPA bots. First of all, not all repetitive tasks are straightforward. And repetitive tasks don’t live in isolation—they’re almost always a foundational part of a bigger process that’s crucial to your company’s operations. That’s where intelligent automation comes in.
Intelligent automation, which is sometimes called hyperautomation, digital process automation or intelligent process automation, takes RPA technology (the ability to automate processes simply through the user interface) and layers other technologies onto it to make it more useful. The addition of these other technologies—various forms of artificial intelligence (AI) and business process management tools—combine to make a more intelligent form of automation. The result? More types of processes can be automated; more integrations with other systems can easily be completed; and more processes can be automated from end to end. It essentially orchestrates and automates the workflow of a process in its entirety, bridging across various systems and includes automated tasks in addition to those completed by humans.
Check out these examples of AI and intelligent automation as compared to RPA:
Nearly every company in every industry suffers from efficiency-related problems. That’s why most of our clients come to us in the first place—because their inefficiencies have started to hamper business performance, and they’re looking for a solution. In most cases, they may not even be able to pinpoint the problem, but they know it exists. (If that’s you, don’t worry—we can help.)
The benefits of eliminating wasteful processes and the associated costs are far-reaching:
What are your efficiency pain points? Are your employees wasting valuable time on data entry? Or are you experiencing a process bottleneck that’s impacting sales, customer service, or product delivery? Talk to us at Nividous. We’ve helped organizations across all verticals—financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and more—solve a wide variety of efficiency problems using automation, and we can help you, too.
Our intelligent automation platform is designed to help companies like yours implement automation quickly, easily, and inexpensively. It combines RPA, AI, and business process management to deliver automation solutions tailored for your use case, without the need for data scientists, computer programmers, or lengthy training sessions. Our Nividous Quick Start model was specifically designed to expedite quick adoption of RPA. Working closely with our experienced professional services consultants, you’ll typically have a solution to deploy within three to four weeks.