As the Automation Economy continues to expand and grow, enterprises are becoming increasingly optimistic about the impressive ROI and proven track record of results achieved from Robotic Process Automation (RPA). These results are more operationally focused in terms of driving down operating costs, increasing processing efficiency and enhancing service delivery.

A key link in the process automation value and success chain, which is often overlooked, is the human workforce. In fact, the fear factor of human job loss and the notion of a robotic workforce taking over is what tends to dominate global news headlines, when in reality, the opposite is true.

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Technology is already forming a huge part of the everyday lives of human beings. Consumers can access AI and cognitive technology from their pockets and as time progresses, new technology naturally integrates into everyday life. The same is true for the workplace. Employees are consumers too and many are already familiar with AI and new technology. Just as this technology adds value to their everyday lives at home, digital assistant technology types will give human employees an opportunity to boost their performance at work and grow their careers.

Many cognitive technological solutions, such as chatbots, are designed with the end customer in mind. Therefore, there is a distinct gap in the market to redirect and evolve cognitive technologies to assist and support the human workforce to reach its best potential.

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Digital assistant technology should have the following robust capabilities in order to truly transform and empower the future human workforce:

• Fully interactive and responsive – virtual assistants should be available to respond to employee requests or questions around the clock, whether activated by voice or text. What’s more, the capability of a virtual assistant to monitor employee desktop actions (by way of mouse clicks and keyboard strokes) and show up at the most optimal time to offer assistance and automate mundane tasks on behalf of the employee, is one of the most valuable capabilities.
• The ability to execute specific tasks automatically such as conducting a background search, verifying the accuracy of various data sets, performing calculations and summarizing critical data taken from multiple different enterprise applications.
• Prompting the employee to remain compliant at all times by displaying relevant disclaimer scripts or perhaps activating or deactivating call recordings at an appropriate point during a customer interaction.
• Upselling and cross-selling support by providing the employee with relevant customer data and sales scripts, at just the right time during a customer interaction in order to successfully upsell or cross-sell.

As enterprises start to successfully adopt robotic automation and digital assistant technology, the workplace will start to experience the first wave of attaining unprecedented levels of business efficiencies and exploring the untapped human potential. Automation allows employees to spend more time on value-add projects which will ultimately boost a company’s bottom line. We expect the adoption of AI technologies to increase over the next few years as new applications are discovered.

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