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Automation has become a crucial part of modern-day businesses for good reasons. Companies increasingly leverage automation technologies to automate tedious, repetitive and wearisome tasks and processes, magnify performance and become more productive. While businesses are investing enormously towards the digitalization of their processes, new automation technologies will continue to evolve, while existing solutions will further advance. Though keeping up with what is new in automation might be a challenge, here are the top 10 automation trends to watch in 2020.
Hyperautomation has been garnering a lot of attention for the last couple of years. It is typically an advanced form of automation, serving the purpose of completing tasks and processes faster, more efficiently and with less error. Gartner predicts the scope of automation over the next few years to evolve from distinct tasks and transactions based on static and rigid rules to automating knowledge work. However, this will require a new automation strategy that focuses on optimizing digital processes from IT infrastructure through customer-facing applications. Hyperautomation allows for the full life-cycle of an automated process, bringing integration, DevOps, monitoring and management together on the same page. This will enable the automation of end-to-end workflows that manage complex reliance across diverse platforms.
Hybrid Digital Infrastructure Management (HDIM), a term coined by Garter, refers to the practice of monitoring and assessing all the IT infrastructure within an organization, including servers, storage and networks. With IT systems becoming more complex, IT teams will need to focus on a platform that allows for managing resources, processes and workloads across diverse, distributed environments. According to Gartner, by 2022, enterprises, with nearly 20 percent, will use HDIM tools to optimize workload placement across on-premises, cloud and edge environments.
In the near future, human-robots collaboration at the workplace will be inevitable. We will work with computers, software and automation technologies. Already, AI has started to become a part of people's lives, but it is anticipated that it will take over humans. Certainly, technology has the potential to replace humans, but there is also the need for some minds to run it. In that context, companies must accomplish the highest level of automation, performing all the menial and repetitive work while freeing up humans to focus on higher cognitive tasks.
Automation has not always been at the leaders' priority as it causes human replacement. But the COVID-19 outbreak has triggered the integration of automation technologies as the pandemic has disrupted business workflow. Even a large number of companies have already begun to layoff their employees due to the cash crunch. Companies and industries are increasingly turning to automation to ensure their businesses keep going and faster ROI. Since all the countries are grappled through an economic crisis, organizations will look for a solution that would alleviate them from this calamity and automate their work. This would lead to a more hostile demand for automation in businesses.
The urgency and need for automation technologies, such as RPA, AI, and machine learning, is stronger now than ever before. And the COVID-19 pandemic has made such automation solutions bedside imperatives. When the concept of democratization of automation become reality, certainly organizations will see an immense business transformation. Automation often requires extensive human participation and support. Thus, by democratizing it will give companies sufficient access to automating mundane tasks and empower non-tech users. However, every new approach comes with a set of challenges, and the democratization of automation is no different. By developing and following a systematic framework, businesses can address such complicacies with ease.
With escalating numbers of automation solution vendors, the automation market will become more and more fragmented. This will certainly create challenges of choosing the right automation tools and platforms. Though it shows a growing uptake of automation, it is creating more confusion and exasperating businesses seeking to either invest in new tools or improve their automation coverage. Hence, it has become indispensable for companies to have a robust strategy to navigate this challenge and choose the right tool according to their business.
While AI is delivering its some pieces of capabilities to businesses, its full potential is yet to come. This new capability will significantly mend RPA with the power of AI, called IPA (Intelligent Process Automation). This advanced technology also combines RPA with machine learning and fundamental process redesign, meaning it can learn and improve over time. As the adoption of RPA is expected to grow in the coming days, the intelligent process automation market will become even more promising. According to KPMG estimations, enterprise investments in IPA and other similar technology will reach US$232 billion by 2025, with large scale adoption expected across several industries.
AI-driven solutions are already paving their way into automation and manufacturing. While more and more connected systems embed advanced sensor technology, AI will have a tremendous impact on failures and other mechanical issues by detecting patterns in the data associated with them. This data will help drive predictive applications, where AI can identify patterns that direct a robot that needs maintenance soon. It can alert engineers automatically for necessary steps towards repairing a machine before it breaks down, saving companies costly downtime.
Automating menial tasks may seem like it is just about technology, but it is more about transformation strategy. Cloud-based automation is the precise solution to persistently ascending demands from organizations as they are moving towards cloud data centers for data management. The users of cloud infrastructures can quickly get access to the resources with the cloud automation system. Cloud automation is not built into the cloud. It basically requires expertise and the use of specialized tools. Companies can leverage this technology from public cloud vendors including AWS, Azure and others.
As the automation technology continues to impact lives in 2021 and beyond, it will stir a push for greater discussion around its ethics. Automation raises ethical questions in a range of business areas in many ways. In finance, for instance, the use of autonomous trading agents is already predominant, and with that activity come ethical questions that have still not been adequately addressed. In the realm of employment, it also raises ethical concerns. For example, robots are already outstripping humans in various activities, and this inclination is on the increase. As a result, companies can lower costs and increase investments in artificial intelligence solutions for the quality of their products.
