Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is here to stay. It is continuously improving the way we work and has a market size that is expected to reach $3.97 billion by 2025. By utilizing RPA, businesses relieve their workforce of mundane tasks that take up valuable time. This gives their staff the opportunity to concentrate on more creative or strategic aspects of their jobs. It also helps them to increase their efficiency and output.
RPA’s importance in driving digital transformation means it is an area that is continuously evolving to meet more complex demands. Today, RPA vendors are increasingly combining their technology with AI applications, such as Machine Learning.
Standard RPA creates automated processes to complete tasks and manage data flows, but Machine Learning allows the data to be put to more complicated uses. Incorporating Machine Learning with RPA results in solutions that can manage vast swathes of data in more intelligent ways.
Intelligent RPA can continuously process information and make decisions based on its previous learning. It can analyze and comprehend both structured and unstructured data, then draw conclusions from it. This means that rather than just completing an action that has been programmed, AI and Machine Learning will enable RPA technologies to independently determine what action to take.
Coca-Cola, the world’s leading beverage company, provides a great example of how this adaptive learning can be used to increase business efficiency. The company has a huge product list, with over 500 drinks brands sold in more than 200 countries. A large amount of these drinks are sold from vending machines all over the world. Several of these machines now have AI algorithms controlling them. These allow the machines to adapt their behaviour to match the location they are in, promoting drinks and flavour shots that are most popular in specific regions and resulting in an increase in sales for Coca-Cola.
Advanced RPA technology could also positively impact our society by improving healthcare. Vast amounts of data are available to aid medical research. This gives rise to the possibility that intelligent RPA could analyze patient records to determine patient symptoms and medical history. Based on this data, intelligent RPA could recommend different treatments, new prescriptions or amended medicine dosages.
This could significantly benefit the healthcare industry, allowing doctors to spend less time finding and analyzing a patient’s medical history and helping patients get diagnosed faster.
One example of how intelligent RPA has the potential to revolutionize healthcare is the use of Google’s DeepMind. This AI system mimics the human brain’s thought processes. Over the last few years, its potential to be applied to healthcare applications has been in development. The DeepMind team has applied AI technology to a vast amount of healthcare data in the US relating to kidney patients. The findings have shown that people with acute kidney injury can be diagnosed up to 48 hours sooner with the help of DeepMind. A quicker process from diagnosis to treatment will mean there can be a higher turnover of patients, saving more lives and significant costs.
The impact of RPA being taken to the next level, by combining it with Machine Learning, is set to revolutionize numerous elements of our society. Businesses and industries that embrace the technology will have a significant advantage over their competitors and be at the forefront of digital transformation.
Find out more about K2 University’s Automation Anywhere RPA instructor-led online training courses.