2023 Automation Trends: Unlock the Future of Intelligent Automation

After combing through 17 reports and surveys about the current automation market and 2023 automation trends, the findings and themes were synonymous. Executives in the field of intelligent automation, RPA, and digital transformation have revealed that the quest towards building autonomous enterprises has only just begun. Consumers, employees, and investors now anticipate companies to be flexible and capable of rolling out new services and features as the market requires. Higher inflation, supply chain disturbances, and anxieties associated with a potential worldwide recession are pushing companies to embrace and invest in intelligent automation.

At the same time, companies are working hard to maintain their workforce. Contrary to popular belief, software bots have always been about enhancing your existing workforce, not replacing employees. Organizations are now turning to intelligent automation to bridge their skills capabilities gaps and improve employee experiences.

By 2030, experts predict the RPA market will grow to $20.1 billion, and the variety of reports that we’ll cover more or less confirm these projections. Thanks to the emergence of low-code automation solutions, citizen developers have the power to take digital transformation into their own hands and use these tools to best fit their specific workplace needs.

Companies are not backing away from RPA and intelligent automation investments. We anticipate that 2023 will see a substantial development of digital footprints and innovation. Nonetheless, certain issues are still present. Some organizations are having difficulty utilizing their existing automation investments, while those who have yet to adopt such technologies are falling behind. Furthermore, organizations susceptible to recent global events and economic instability have had to reduce their technology spending in some areas.

Trend #1 Organizations are now utilizing automation as their most up-to-date approach for innovating and operating

Companies are putting automation at the forefront of their digital strategies, making it a core priority for the entire enterprise. Leaders from the C-suite are beginning to understand and utilize automation for business transformation and value. It is no longer being used as a single tactic, but instead, automation is being integrated into the major initiatives and operations of the business. By taking this step, the potential of automation is being unlocked, resulting in the development of digital-centered products and services, improved customer and employee experiences, additional value and revenue, and a model that more businesses will try to emulate.

Trend #2 Companies are increasing the use of automation to counter the increasing cost of labor and inflation

Executives are presented with numerous fiscal obstacles as the labor market is at its tightest since WWII, and inflation is at its highest in four decades. However, automation can provide a solution to these problems which more and more business leaders are turning to. For instance, 60% of executives are having difficulties filling key positions in their organizations.

Some executives are rethinking the workforce with automation as 78% of them plan to further invest in automation to fill position gaps. Automation can amplify the productivity of current teams to be able to do more with the same resources while making the company more appealing to potential recruits as 85% believe automation helps reduce employee turnover and attracts new talent.

Trend #3 CIOs job responsibilities have increased and are implementing automation in order to achieve new business objectives

In the present day, it is essential for a business to make the most of technological advances if they are to be successful. Consequently, teams are now looking to their CIOs to lead the way and take charge of the activities across the company with their primary focus of increasing revenue. Over the last 2 years, the role of CIOs has expanded and evolved.

CIOs are at the helm of introducing new strategies and structures that will reduce costs, expedite workflows, revolutionize customer experiences, and create fresh business opportunities. Reports show that 90% of CIOs are now engaged in activities such as analytics, ESG, recruiting, and sales and marketing, in addition to their core responsibilities. To bring about the desired results, CIOs are investing in cybersecurity, cloud technology, data analysis, and AI advancements.

Now, CIOs are realizing that automation can be a great asset in their collection of resources, not just providing its own merits, but also augmenting the other tools they use. With automation as part of their business strategy and structure, CIOs are discovering more initial returns and more comprehensive transformation in a shorter time period.

Trend #4 Deploying an RPA Center of Excellence to align people, processes, and technology

Establishing an effective governance model during the initial automation phase will mplement best practices, determine the participation and interaction amongst different departments, and prioritize knowledge sharing for each stage of the RPA Implementation. Primarily, an RPA Center of Excellence (CoE) is a way for you to scale your automation program and expand your operational efficiency. RPA is already a powerful tool for operational excellence, but it is not a plug-and-play solution. It requires a lot of hands-on work and resources to implement.

Regarding automation implementation, a remarkable increase was spotted in the deployment and utilization of RPA CoEs. In 2021, 54% of participants had established an automation CoE while in 2022, 72% of them revealed they had already deployed one. This demonstrates that companies are taking business process automation more seriously and setting up the necessary organizational structure to reach their goals.

Trend #5 It is essential for enterprises to incorporate process mining and automated testing in order to achieve the highest level of automation

At the present, almost any process can be upgraded with automation. Nevertheless, that implies discovering and assessing all those procedures. Nowadays, automated discovery tools such as process mining and task mining rely on advanced AI to analyze system logs and the activities of users, spotting bottlenecks, process inefficiencies, and other potential areas for improvement in workflows and departments. This essential information can then be utilized to create new or more beneficial procedures—even prior to automating them.

It is not only important to build automations, but it’s also critical to ensure they are working accurately and becoming more efficient over time with machine learning. However, it can be difficult to guarantee this level of quality control when testing manually. Consequently, automated testing can be used to rapidly and completely test automations and programs both before and after deployment, helping to improve their quality, reliability, durability, and productivity. When combined, these two capabilities help spread and speed up automation throughout your business.

Trend #6 Making low-code technology a priority is essential for increasing the accessibility of automation and artificial intelligence

The implementation of automation, AI, and data modeling can give businesses a competitive advantage. Nevertheless, many people lack the technical abilities to operate with such tools, putting extra workload on IT, developers, and data scientists. Fortunately, modern automation platforms offer low-code and no-code capabilities, which allow users of all skill levels to generate automations, data models, and applications they need with a simple drag-and-drop visual interface, as opposed to complex programming.

For example, low-code allows business personnel with no analytics experience to still utilize their knowledge to design AI models to target their specific issues, automations that comprehend their data, answer their most frequent questions, and make the right choices for them. IT teams are needed to build unique applications to allow users to function with a variety of technologies and systems. Low-code development methods provide a way for them to bypass lengthy manual coding and reach the final product more rapidly.

Trend #7 Artificial intelligence is being utilized to create more advanced automated systems and processes

The union of AI and automation is a tremendously potent force, providing the potential to unlock valuable prospects. Advanced Communications Mining enables the transformation of unstructured data within emails, calls, chats, and service tickets into usable material to train Natural Language Processing (NLP) models. These models can consequently be used to automate a vast range of processes, such as the processing of millions of emails without any manual intervention, the automatic handling of common queries and requests, and the compilation of detailed customer insights.

Furthermore, AI-enhanced NLP also provides the capability of Intelligent Document Processing, thereby relieving a lot of the manual work associated with paperwork. Software bots are able to recognize, analyze, and interpret a diverse array of documents, regardless if they are in a different template, handwritten, or even scanned, skewed, or improperly formatted.

Trend #8 Acquiring digital proficiency is quickly becoming a priority for both HR and IT management

As automation transforms the nature of employment, it is essential that workplaces adjust, too, necessitating new roles, knowledge, and a new way of thinking. To get the most out of automation, organizations must alter technology, processes, and company culture. HR and IT should collaborate to hire, train and give staff the skills to perform in the new environment, concentrating less on transactional and repetitive activities and more on maximizing the advantages of automation. How can management bridge the widening skills gap and give teams the means to do more? Fortunately, the correct automation platform can help.

Trend #9 Identifying the ideal partner on your journey to realizing the full potential of automation

In this dynamic digital world, enterprises are constantly under pressure to maintain their competitive edge and drive business growth. As you have acquired a better understanding of where automation is headed, it is the right time to take the next step. Automation is not just a passing fad; it is here to stay and will continue to grow rapidly with new innovations in AI, machine learning, IoT, and virtual assistants. To access the true benefits of automation, you will need to make some real changes and have a dependable and experienced partner to guide you. You need a partner that understands your unique challenges to provide a strategic plan to implement automations that help you stay ahead of your competitors.

Smartbridge is the perfect fit for this purpose, providing a comprehensive solution to help you increase automation adoption to bring value across your organization. With Microsoft Power Automate and UiPath’s pioneering automation technology, you can automate more effectively and quickly as well as provide more employees the tools to utilize RPA. This will result in quicker ROI, yield significant cost savings, improve customer and employee experiences, and permit completely new possibilities within your organization.

But still, the initial step in escalating automation is modifying your outlook, and Smartbridge is here to help you move ahead with a more strategic answer.