In the past years, UiPath has been able to achieve a leading position in the robotic process automation industry. Their offerings help organizations not worry about the repetitive and rule based tasks within the company. The organization’s software programmes recreate human actions, but reducing the margin of error and increasing productivity. Nevertheless the interesting part comes into play when artificial intelligence is able to integrate in these workflows and turn an isolated automation process into a collective intelligence.
It is normal for companies to spend a lot of resources in all the coordination required across multiple departments. This is what we call transaction costs. These include communication issues which result in delays or even manual data entry steps. These services provided by UiPath drastically reduce all of these inefficiencies: Fewer mistakes and faster decisions.
Just think and visualize an institution making use of these kinds of offerings. Instead of thousands of employees manually retrieving loan applications. The AI algorithm extracts the information and sends only the most complex issues for human review. There is of course other aspects of this future scenario which can remind us of a dystopian world, but only time will tell.
In my opinion, the opportunity does not lie in just automating boring workflows, but in being able to think about reshaping business processes. As these technologies continue evolving, companies will start thinking more and more about what machines do best, and processes will be designed around that.
What do you think? Is the world ready for a workplace where artificial intelligence handles most transactions and humans just think about innovation and strategy?
Interesting take Anton. While we are focusing on automating current workflows with AI, the most successful value creating companies in the future might be those who design new workflows around the capabilities of AI instead.