Businesses using artificial intelligence (AI) to save time, money, and hassle is nothing new. Over the past few years, AI assistants, chatbots, and agents have grown increasingly popular — particularly when it comes to performing administrative tasks.
By combining AI with the power of business process automation, your organization can effectively slash the burden of repetitive tasks. But while AI is useful, to maximize its benefits, you need to deploy it with the right solutions.
What is AI and business automation?
AI is a technology that uses a combination of machine learning, natural language processing, and neural networks to perform tasks that would otherwise require human skill. There are millions of uses for this technology, both in business and everyday life — from chatbots and predictive data analysis, to artwork generation and video production.
Business process automation is an overarching term for the implementation of digital solutions to handle repetitive, business-related tasks. A range of software can perform business process automation, each with its own specialty — and AI is arguably the most powerful.
The benefits of automating with AI
Although business process automation and AI may have independent functions, they work well together to elevate productivity and value. For example, an e-commerce company may use AI business process automation to streamline order processing workflows, analyze trends in customer spending, and further optimize business strategy.
Beyond that AI business process automation offers a variety of key benefits:
- Enhanced efficiency
- Reductions in human error
- Cost reductions
- Elimination of many repetitive tasks
- Optimized employee value and productivity
- Ensured compliance
- Data-based insight generation
AI and business process automation have a lot in common, which is what makes them so easy to combine — but they also have some distinct differences. Let’s take a look at both.
Similarities between AI and business process automation
AI and business process automation offer similar benefits. When an organization harnesses them effectively, these complementary solutions can enhance business operations via a number of factors:
- Automation: Both AI tools and business process automation strategies are designed to iron out issues and reduce the need for employees to work on repetitive tasks.
- Integration: Both solutions can be integrated into your existing tech stack in order to maximise your organization’s workflow.
- Scalability: By implementing these solutions, you can increase your business’ capabilities without having to worry about hiring additional employees.
- Data usage: While AI uses data to learn and adapt, automation solutions use it to complete workflows.
With AI and business process automation sharing some similarities, many people mistake them as being the same solution. However there are distinct variations that make them unique.
Differences between AI and business process automation
It’s important to understand that these two solutions aren’t one and the same. There are some key differences to keep in mind when considering AI and business process automation:
- Function: Artificial intelligence can increase productivity through adaptive decision-making. Business process automation, on the other hand, focuses on completing set tasks to streamline routine processes and improve efficiency.
- Complexity: Compared to business process automation, AI is far more complex. Artificial intelligence solutions rely on advanced technology, which takes longer to develop than more straightforward automation solutions.
- Adaptability: Automations are executed based on set parameters, while AI can learn and adapt to improve its functionality and execution.
- Scope: Automation is narrowly focused on enhancing the efficiency of a single process. AI is more broadly capable, offering insight into multiple areas of business through machine learning and predictive analytics.
While these solutions may have distinct purposes, they’re far more powerful when used together. That’s why many business automation solutions are evolving to incorporate AI into their framework — elevate their future value.
The future of AI business process automation
As AI and business process automation continue to evolve, the capabilities of both solutions will take their combined value to the next level. Here’s how they could benefit your business:
- Intelligent process automation: As AI and automation advance, they’ll become more capable of automating complex, intelligent business processes, and understanding context that previously required human intervention.
- Hyper-automation: These solutions may evolve to create end-to-end automation systems that can handle complex tasks quickly, from start to finish, connecting linked processes together into one centralized system.
- Autonomous automation: AI systems will be able to use machine learning to recognize performance data and self-implement it to improve efficiency and optimize operations, without needing to be manually upgraded or trained.
As these solutions become more advanced, your team will notice more opportunities to improve operational efficiency. But with limitless technology, it can be difficult to set clear, achievable goals — and boundaries. Knowing how, and where, to use these solutions can help you better extract their maximum potential value.
4 use cases for AI business process automation
AI business process automation can help your organization across the board, but there are certain tasks it does better than others. Consider the following applications — and from there, set goals, measure outcomes, and track their effectiveness to get the best outcomes.
1. To balance operational costs
- Use case: With AI business process automation, you can reduce the cost of everyday operations.
- Example: An e-commerce business that relies on customer service staff being online 24/7 might introduce an AI chatbot to help reduce workload and make special case handling more efficient.
- Benefit: Your company can afford to have fewer staff on-call, while still handling the same number of queries, boosting your overall revenue.
2. Boosting employee productivity and satisfaction
- Use case: Remove repetitive tasks from your employees’ workloads, freeing them up to perform high-value tasks — allowing them to use their specialized skills for relevant cases.
- Example: A HR manager might be dealing with a large amount of paperwork while onboarding a new starter, leaving them at risk of burnout and your operations more prone to bottlenecks. Rather than having them complete manual checks once each step of the process has been completed, the right AI automation tool would keep track of this.
- Benefit: Automating such tasks gives your team more time to complete a greater volume of high-quality work, improving their performance, productivity and overall satisfaction at work.
3. Reducing errors and elevating efficiency
- Use case: Let AI deal with repetitive tasks like data entry, and optimize the efficiency of your business by handling multiple workloads at once — all without costly human errors.
- Example: A copywriter responsible for writing huge batches of product descriptions may find it impossible to avoid natural spelling or grammatical errors from time to time. An AI tool that can automate editing and spell-checking is invaluable, giving the writer peace of mind and enhancing their ability to complete high volume tasks.
- Benefit: Automation solutions can perform many business tasks in a fraction of the time, allowing your business to streamline and accelerate core processes.
4. Enhancing customer experiences
- Use case: With the help of AI chatbots and automated lead nurturing, your team can build a better, highly-personalized customer experience through AI business process automation.
- Example: An online store may use a chatbot to help to track customer orders, provide shipping updates directly, and only escalate problems to the human team when necessary.
- Benefit: AI-powered solutions can personalize customer interactions, and provide 24/7 support without slowing down your team — boosting brand reputation and improving efficiency.
Jotform: A powerful way to harness AI business process automation
You don’t just need a blanket AI business process automation solution — you need the right partner by your side. Luckily, Jotform is here to help. While you may know Jotform primarily for its powerful online form builder, it also offers a variety of powerful, AI-driven tools — like Jotform Workflows, which allows your team to
- Implement workflow automation to streamline your essential business processes.
- Easily set up multistep workflows, assign approvers, and track the progress of business requests in real time — including reimbursement requests, customer orders, or even employee onboarding forms.
- Customize your notifications to ensure approvers get an alert at every step of the workflow — ensuring communication throughout the process.
- Integrate seamlessly with the full suite of Jotform products, including AI-powered solutions, such as AI Form Generator, AI Quiz Generator and AI Signature Generator — reducing the need for manual intervention and facilitating process improvement.
Streamline your organization with AI business process automation
The benefits of AI business process automation are clear. By investing in the right combination of tools and deploying them across relevant use cases, you can accelerate your profitability, operational efficiency, and team’s productivity — especially with Jotform by your side. Get started for free today and witness the power of AI business process automation in action.
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