What is intelligent automation?

Because RPA is so essential to effective intelligence automation, the two terms are sometimes confused or used interchangeably. But the reality is that RPA and IA are not the same thing. You can think of RPA as the soldiers on the ground, while IA is the commander making the strategic decisions. RPA is most effective when it is mimicking and learning from human actions. It generally operates within rule-based activities, such as reading, entering, sharing, and extracting data.

IA takes a higher-level approach. Simulating human intelligence and focusing instead on end-to-end process, IA is capable of bringing automation into the realm of strategy, streamlining and improving an organization's decision-making capabilities. When used in concert, both RPA and IA can benefit from and build upon each other’s strengths.

The components listed above operate together to produce IA solutions that go beyond basic RPA and traditional automation. Rather than limiting automation to conventional rule-based tasks, intelligent automation makes it possible for you to automate more complex activities, including those that have long relied on human judgment.

To facilitate this, intelligent automation follows these basic steps:

• Build and digitize
  Using LCAPs, you can create, configure, and integrate unified applications capable of top functionality across every channel.
• Automate
  Integrating data sources with app functionality, the next step is to apply automation capabilities. RPA and document processing play crucial roles in this stage.
• Apply AI
  Next, predictive intelligence is incorporated into the system.
• Discover and Optimize
  With automation and AI correctly applied, the intelligent automation process is almost complete. That said, there is still room for improvement. Automating process discovery with intelligent process automation allows you to quickly locate bottlenecks and anomalies in your processes, understand root causes, and continually optimize your IA solutions.

For as long as digital automation has existed, leaders and employees have anticipated a time when automated systems could finally take a more strategic role in decision making. IA is making that dream a reality, and as new and improved technologies further bridge the cognitive gap between human and machine, these capabilities will only increase.

What does the future of intelligent automation look like? Here are several trends worth watching in the coming years:

• Many tedious aspects of white-collar employment will become fully automated.
• Collaborative robots will be increasingly deployed in work settings.
• Formerly resistant industries will begin adopting RPA technologies.
• There will be an increased focus on automated software testing to improve quality and time to market.
• Businesses will begin to rely more heavily on NLP and conversational AI for both customer- and internal-facing processes.
• Staff shortages will create less of a negative impact as automated technologies become capable of performing more employee tasks.
• Businesses will utilize more low-code development solutions to create software better suited to their needs.

Possibly more than any other recent technology, intelligent automation has the capacity to completely change how businesses operate. IA promises a world of increased business efficiency, where every action is streamlined and every decision is based on the correct data analysis. But making that jump to truly cognitive automation demands the right tools and support. The ServiceNow Automation Engine is the answer.

Built on the industry defining Now Platform®, Automation Engine brings together powerful RPA components and capabilities, document intelligence, and out-of-the-box solutions—all through a single, centralized location. And that is only the beginning.

Schedule a demo to learn more about ServiceNow automation and the Now Platform, and get ready to put intelligent automation to work for your business.