Automation, when powered by AI, can increase your business profitability by a significant margin. The most obvious ways this benefit manifests are through a reduction of manual tasks, but there are other major benefits.
How exactly does AI-driven process automation increase profitability? And how can you make this work for your business?
The Power of AI-Driven Process Automation
AI-driven process automation builds on the foundation of traditional process automation with new intelligent and agentic capabilities. While classic Process automation is relatively easy to understand; using rules-based technology to automate processes in your organization that are repetitive. Today, AI enhances this with predictability and new levels of decision-making
For example, if you typically generate a report every month based on the same spread of data, and you send that report to the same people at the same time each month, you can easily automate that process and save yourself the time of going through it.
AI adds a new dimension to this dynamic, incorporating the latest in machine learning and artificial intelligence to make these tools much more powerful and add new capabilities. AI-driven process automation can handle a much wider range of tasks, and it can deliver even more satisfactory results in certain applications.
With the power of AI, process automation can help you with things like:
- Analytics and decision making: AI excels at processing large volumes of data and gathering insights and analytics from them. The ability to crunch numbers much faster and more reliably than human beings, and generate meaningful insights leads to better business decisions. Previous process automation tools simply did not have this capability. In some ways, you can think of an AI as another leader within your organization, helping you interpret data in support of better decision making.
- Intelligent workflow automation: As you might imagine, AI-driven intelligent automation is even better than traditional RPA at automating workflows. It can handle much more complicated and sophisticated workflows, and ultimately achieve much better results.
- Chatbots and conversational AI: Many people became acquainted with the latest generation of AI through generative AI and conversational AI tools. These days, AI-driven process automation can add a layer of conversationality to most applications. You can use conversational inquiries to get the AI to do what you want, and the AI can have its own conversations with individual users when necessary.
- Personalization: AI-driven process automation can personalize and individualize interactions at scale. While they often follow defined rules,, it can provide tailored, thoughtful experiences to each individual who interacts with it.
The Profitability Equation
So how exactly is this going to make your organization more profitable?
To determine profitability, we can look at both expenses saved and potential for higher revenue. Let’s start by looking at the ways that AI-driven process automation can decrease your expenses:
- Reducing manual effort: By default, roughly a third of your revenue is going to be spent on labor. Even small reductions in manual work can lead to measurable gains. AI-driven process automation can hypothetically save hundreds of hours of time in your organization, translating into real, immediate cost savings.
- Reducing errors and mistakes: AI process automation can also reduce errors and mistakes, as these sophisticated algorithms aren’t susceptible to human biases or lapses in attention. Because mistakes can be very costly, reducing or eliminating them can greatly increase your profitability.
- Driving greater efficiency: Process automation drives straight-through-processing and greater efficiency overall. You’ll waste less time in a variety of categories, and your teams canbe more focused on higher-value work and improving overall throughput.
- Scaling effectively: AI automation also helps with effective scaling. It’s much easier to take on new customers or provide new products in new segments when you have scalable platform and autated processes, enabling you to serve exponentially more customers.
There are also ways that AI-driven process automation can potentially increase your revenue:
- Improving customer experience: When it comes to customer experience, AI has been downright disruptive. When used properly, AI can serve customers faster and more effectively, ultimately boosting their satisfaction and improving your retention.
- Launching new products and services: WithAI process automation in your business, you may be able to add new products and services much faster and sell to new customers. You can also reach them in dynamic, more personalized ways, which can be extremely beneficial for growth.
- Identifying new areas for improvement: More broadly, AI can help you identify new opportunities for improvement within your organization. It can highlight and provide recommendations for dealing with potential weaknesses and addressing inefficiencies.
Crunching the Numbers
AI-driven process automation isn’t guaranteed to make your business more profitable, but the upside is significant if you use these types of tools responsibly. With the potential to both reduce expenses in your business and increase income, even a modest investment in the right platform can pay substantial returns over time for your organization.
Caroline is doing her graduation in IT from the University of South California but keens to work as a freelance blogger. She loves to write on the latest information about IoT, technology, and business. She has innovative ideas and shares her experience with her readers.