The Art of Automation

The Art of Automation, based on a podcast of the same name, is a practical guide for leaders who need to understand and evaluate how automation technology can transform their organization, business processes, and models. It combines both an aspirational and pragmatic overview of automation technology, its core capabilities, and the value they generate from a business perspective. It describes various real-world examples, implementations and approaches, with industry-specific and cross-industry use cases. Automation technology has been around for a long time, but in the past several decades, we've seen an explosion of information work in the enterprise. When every business is a digital business (which is the case today), the proliferation of data is massive--far greater than humans can cope with alone. And making sense of this mass of data is just the kind of work that classic automation doesn't address. Enter modern artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which can use algorithms to make sense of structured and unstructured data at a speed and scale no human could approach. Making this combination of Automation and AI, which we call AI-powered Automation, work best for you is, as Jerry says, an art. Leaders who are unsure of where to start their automation journey can use the examples in this book as a guide for selecting projects and technologies with techniques designed to speed up the automation of bite-size activities that deliver immediate return on investment (ROI) without having to wait until the entire end-to-end process is automated. Our goal is to cover all the key topics with which you need to be comfortable in order to positively impact your organization as it evaluates and implements AI-powered automation technology. Even if you are already familiar with the basics, the early chapters will reinforce your understanding of the most important concepts (e.g., closed-loop automations) and technologies (e.g., Robotic Process Automation and AIOps) and explore general use cases. As you dive deeper, you will be systematically introduced to specific topics with details that will enable your organization to successfully implement solutions that leverage AI-powered automation. The book also provides industry-specific points of view on automation through a series of chapters that capture interviews with luminaries in the fields of healthcare, insurance, retail, and financial services. Several chapters are co-written by some of the industry's most notable experts in AI and automation. Many of these experts can be heard on a corresponding episode of The Art of Automation podcast.