AI technologies introduce dynamic, new interfaces than enhance the organization’s BPM capabilities.
These interfaces and technologies improve process efficiency and reduce cost.
AI Around Us – How AI optimizes processes
Imagine being able to check for movie show times, post your recent selfie on social media and get latest sports statistics with the utterance of a few words. Not so alien anymore, is it?
Well, ten years ago, who would’ve imagined any of this to be possible? Just as the world thought nothing could beat the brilliance of smartphones, Apple released their first virtual assistant to greet the world, Siri. Soon after, Google Now and Amazon Alexa took the world of internet users by storm. Virtual assistants were the pioneers of AI, demonstrating to the world, how technology could make our lives easier and perhaps, even better.
Like other forms of AI, virtual assistants are run on application programs that recognize voice commands in natural language. They complete tasks as commanded by users based on the existing information they have. These virtual assistants built into smartphones took over the dreary jobs of secretaries who had, once upon a time, looked up phone numbers from address books and called clients for appointment dates.
Freeing the secretary did not only save the organizations some money, it also saved business leaders immense time that was previously spent painstakingly arranging for meetings and booking flights.
With the rapid advancement in technology in the last decade, a large portion of processes can now be easily automated and optimized. As AI-based virtual assistants and bots are easily available on the internet and in smartphones, we all reap their benefits! Instant solutions to queries via Google, quick responses from chat bots on online shopping site, and Facebook being able to recognize and tag your friends on your latest pictures.
As intelligent as these machines demonstrate themselves to be in the world of retail, there is a visible reluctance among corporate leaders in adopting such technologies. Understandably so, there are quite a few barriers that come in the way of implementing AI in a large scale. First and foremost, developing and maintaining AI applications come with immense cost. Due to the fairly new and niche nature of AI, IT companies can only dream of employing data scientists to herald their automation goals.
AI Can Streamline Business Processes
Companies are having to look beyond digital transformation; diverting their resources towards the latest technologies that will automate their business processes and eliminate inefficiencies. Business leaders are seeking to satisfy efficiency and compliance through process and decision-making automation. Standardized procedures and decisions assure higher quality services offered to customers and clients.
Intelligent technologies are becoming increasingly compatible with business process management (BPM) systems. What used to be systems that executed pre-set processes, have now developed into intelligent systems that automate and optimize processes dynamically. By integrating process and human intelligence with machine intelligence, businesses can improve operational efficiencies and business process innovation.
BPM is bound to evolve with the help of AI and other intelligent technologies in the following ways:
- Machine Learning – Data to Prediction
We have all heard of machine learning. But, what exactly is it?
As artificial intelligence progressed, so did the demand for robots or machines to take over tasks that were meant to be undertaken by human. These jobs required complex decision-making and analysis. Then came machine learning, a field of AI that utilizes statistical techniques to get computers or machines to ‘think’ or ‘learn’ from the masses of data they collect.
What sets machine learning apart from the process managers of the past is its ability to manage and store large volumes of data. Backed with a cloud service, the robot has immense flexibility in storing information and unimaginable scalability in drafting up solutions for a variety of situations. The machine is no longer constrained to pre-defined rules, thus enabling it to adapt to dynamic changes in the data fed into it. The machine gradually improves the efficiency of the business process as it ‘learns’ and makes inferences about new situations or problems it faces.
These inferences or predictions gathered from specific incidents can then, diagnose solutions or recommendations that serve as an automated resolving action.
- New Interfaces and Features
As several organizations are beginning to see millennials as their primary consumer segment, they are having to oblige to serve them better based on their specific expectations. Convenience, responsiveness and an innovative approach to suiting their demands are a few examples of what these new consumers demand.
As the era of making business inquiries via email slips away, businesses are having to adapt to growing demands for 24/7 support and responsiveness. For this purpose, AI-based chat bots are beginning to improve business processes with automatic response solutions.
With the success of Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant, voice activated digital assistants are increasingly being adopted by large companies. As voice recognition and responsive chat bots work together, businesses are enjoying greater responses from consumers. Enhanced communication channels, effective task management and speedy online browsing sessions are transforming the course of consumers’ two-way interactions with brands.
Several BPM vendors have integrated these interfaces into their systems to improve processing of automated tasks.
AI Technologies for BPM
Organizations are collecting seas of data in order to build the AI algorithms necessary for automation. AI technologies push BPM capabilities towards digital transformation.
In the transformation journey, organizations employ the power of AI into creating a highly efficient process flow. As process and operational efficiencies improve drastically, cost of man-hours and corresponding human errors reduce to a minimal.
New AI-driven interfaces also boost quality of service and thus, customer experience.
