The new wave of process automation is intelligent

Intelligent process automation adds advanced cognitive technologies such as AI to expand business process automation across entire enterprises

Newer versions of automation are not only digitising business processes but are also allowing insights to improve efficiency.

Robotic process automation, or RPA, helped bring transparency and efficiency in businesses. The next evolution of RPA is intelligent process automation, or IPA. “RPA takes repetitive manual tasks and uses bots, or software robots, to replace them with automated workflows,” says an assessment by Cognizant. “IPA goes a step further, adding advanced cognitive technologies such as AI to expand business process automation across the entire enterprise.”

In short, while RPA is automation of a process that repeats itself blindly, IPA adds its thinking cap. The IPA process mimics the way a human thinks and is able to resolve conflicts far better than a classic automation process. 

In some ways IPA is constantly analysing the results of its efforts to improve the outcome. Intelligence technologies like computer vision (converting scans to text) and natural language processing are part of the IPA. In normal process automation, if a customer enters data wrongly or in an incorrect box, the process will not work. But the artificial intelligence inherent in IPA will allow it to assess the information even if it is not structured. 

Let’s take an example. When a customer sends queries to a chatbot, a few standardised answers pop up. If the questions from a customer are specific to a region or a product, the chatbot is unable to answer. However, an IPA-based chatbot will go beyond the standard answers to search for relevant information from its data base and then respond to a customer. 

UiPath, an RPA company, works with various clients to add intelligence to its tools. UiPath says that its robots extend the scope of automation to knowledge-based processes that otherwise couldn’t be covered. “They not only handle the automation of unstructured content (think irregular paper invoices) but can interpret content and apply rules (unhappy social media posts),” the company says.

When companies are assessing their social media reputation or customer satisfaction levels, it is important that the automation tool understand the context. Here, an intelligent analysis of comments, feedback or social posts requires IPA. “Sentiment analysis helps the robots understand the meaning and emotion of text language and use it as the basis for complex decision making. High value solutions range from insurance to accounting to customer service and more,” UiPath says. 

Tech companies are enabling a high level of efficiency with IPA tools for their clients. Cognizant says it helped a credit-card service company achieve 99 per cent accuracy in handling 100,000 vendor invoices each month. And for a leading agribusiness company, IPA led to 90 per cent process improvement and 400 per cent improvement in return on investment. 

“IPA mimics activities carried out by humans and, over time, learns to do them even better. Traditional levers of rule-based automation are augmented with decision-making capabilities thanks to advances in deep learning and cognitive technology,” says a McKinsey report. “The promise of IPA is radically enhanced efficiency, increased worker performance, reduction of operational risks, and improved response times and customer journey experiences.”

Companies in nearly every sector can use the new generation of process automation. The ability of IPA to create efficiency is impacting manufacturing and services. Within enterprises and even government agencies the use of IPA can be useful. From invoice processing to revenue cycle management, companies can reduce their cost of finance. Health care claims and payroll management can be enhanced for government agencies which are often the largest employers in the world. Once a competitive advantage, IPA is nearly a necessity now.