Robotics automation and AI: technologies for business efficiency 

The world’s embrace of technology was accelerated with the declaration of a global pandemic just over a year ago – even the speeded-up development of vaccines has been influenced significantly by technological inputs.

In the commercial sphere, online sales proved to be the saviour of many a business (and consumer). But the interfaces we use so routinely are not so simple. Behind the scenes there has been a flurry of work to deliver online processes, and RPA and AI have been transformative in unprecedented ways.

Robotics process automation (RPA) is, according to Andrew Burgess’ article in Disruption Hub, a class of software that replicates the actions of humans operating computer systems in order to run business processes. Artificial intelligence (AI), is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines – and in this digital age, RPA and AI are indeed transforming how we do business all across the globe.

While many local businesses are still struggling with this pivot, RPA and AI are relevant to a wide range of day-to-day operations, including insurance claim submission and processing, invoice transcription and customer service chat bots. Another useful function is data validation, where robotic automation can help reduce the incidence of bad data by identifying and intercepting poor data quality at the source, before it enters systems.

Manufacturing, banking, insurance, retail, online interfaces and restaurants can all benefit from widespread application of RPA and AI.

Because they complement each other, RPA and AI allow for speedier processes, increased efficiency and accuracy, consistency, and cost savings that allow human resources to be deployed into more critical areas. They are ideal for structured and rules-based tasks. Wherever there is a high volume of repetitive tasks, business owners should consider automating the processes. Artificial intelligence can understand speech, identify images and make predictions by processing mountains of data in just a few seconds; the same result would probably take humans years to analyse. RPA and AI can also assist with identifying risk and taking preventive measures to avoid negative outcomes.

While RPA and AI are not meant to replace humans in complex, decision-making tasks such as answering customer emails or deciding whether to escalate a client complaint, they can definitely enhance the process by providing relevant data and analysis. In this way, they benefit the workforce by allowing for increased creativity and flexibility, and by opening up new job alignments.

In fact, RPA and AI have been identified as one of the fastest growing sectors globally even before the pandemic, when various reports have cited the global RPA market as being worth approximately US$250 million in 2016, and sales of RPA software are projected to increase by a staggering 60 per cent by 2022. These technologies have been making the difference for many companies and will continue to do so when it comes to being technologically prepared for the future.

As countries begin to emerge from the pandemic it is already clear that several of the adjustments that were forced upon us will remain as our preferred way of doing things. Business have realised that it is entirely possible and not at all premature to implement remote working practices; they have proven to be win-win for both corporations and employees.

The move to online sales has allowed other companies to scale down brick-and-mortar operations and while re-training and re-deploying staff to online tasks. Even as we speak, new jobs are being created for areas of technological research and development in almost every sector. Ironically, we may one day thank the covid19 pandemic for a fast track into the fourth industrial revolution.

(Submitted by the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce)