The Rise of Digital Co-workers

One of the many impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic is driving digital transformation forward. Just like Industrial Revolution, we now stand on the cusp of ground-breaking change- ushering in the era of Digital Transformation. This includes a surge in technological innovation, adoption, and digitization, which infuses most aspects of an enterprise. In this blog, we will take you through the rise of Digital Co-workers and how significant they are for any enterprise.

Digital Transformation and rise of Digital Co-workers

One of the most significant innovations is AI-enabled Digital co-workers. Instead of RPA (Robotic Process Automation) and simple automation processes, a Digital Co-worker is just like an employee who can automate tasks seamlessly and do the same intelligently in a sequence and can handle the complete business process. When exceptions or difficulties require a human’s assistance, the digital co-worker escalates it. Meanwhile, the software also learns and remembers as it works.

How did Digital Co-workers arise?

Integration of advanced technologies

Though RPA has been functioning for many years, there is a push for something even better post-pandemic. As more businesses adopt technologies, they need the process to be smoother and hassle-free. Simple RPA has evolved to intelligent automation. Thus, intelligent automation and Artificial Intelligence enabled various technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision, Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), and more start to get steadily incorporated into the workplace. Having AI-enabled technology ensures smooth automation processes, high productivity, and no/low errors. Regular employees can focus on creative and challenging aspects which require human cognition and touch. They do not need to be bogged down with tedious and monotonous work. Enterprises find happier employees and better productivity by adopting various AI (Artificial Intelligence) technologies.

A complete solution 

The demand steadily arose for something more wholesome. As an entrepreneur, you can implement ML followed by NLP, and so forth; but given an option, would you not implement them all and use at your convenience? The answer came with the rise of the AI-enabled Digital Co-worker. Instead of incorporating many technologies, having one Digital Co-worker handle a task end-to-end intelligently and independently became much more convenient. It is a simpler, favourable, and cost-effective option.

Thus, automating entire processes using Digital Co-worker (like another employee) is beneficial instead of applying various technologies in the work process. The following citation further attests to the point.

Collaboration of humans and machines

An excerpt from Harvard Business Review says: “In our research involving 1500 companies, we found that firms achieve the most significant performance improvements when humans and machines work together. Through such collaborative intelligence, humans and AI actively enhance each other’s complementary strengths: the leadership, teamwork, creativity, and social skills of the former and the speed, scalability, and quantitative capabilities of the latter.” 

What is a Digital Co-worker?

Digital Co-worker(s) are nothing but your artificial employees executing any and every task required. Being AI-enabled, these software robots behave like team members with skills and expertise in the domain. Being fully trained, digital co-workers work in collaboration with their human team members. They are intelligent as they can understand, respond, and act on the side of human employees. Nevertheless, humans have complete authority and control of the entire work process.

Benefits

Let us look at the benefits of integrating a digital co-worker in your business(es): 

• Streamlining your process(es) and workflow(s): 

AI-powered digital assistants who perform high volume and repeatable tasks streamline the processes and the workflows.

• Self-learning: 

Digital co-worker (s) can learn from your responses and their past interactions by observing their human colleagues perform best practices as and when you question them. 

• No information silos: 

As digital co-worker(s) triggers multiple workflows simultaneously, there is no risk of unnecessary information delay or compartmentalization between departments which results in smooth process functionality. 

• Scalability: 

It does not matter what or how your business is both in terms of size and productivity, digital co-worker(s) are scalable. They can be scaled down or up depending on your requirement. 

• Customizable: 

This is one of the most attractive and vital aspects of a digital co-worker(s). They are customizable and can be tailor-made according to the requirements of the enterprise. Just as one size does not fit all, digital co-workers are custom-built to be genuinely efficient. 

• Availability: 

As their classification implies (“Digital”), digital co-worker(s) do not experience burnout, sickness or day and night cycles, or attrition. Hence are available anytime (24/7). 

• Productivity: 

As digital co-worker(s) perform tasks quickly and efficiently, negating the chances of errors and re-doing the entire process. And as they have customizable scalable and quantitative capabilities, they boost your productivity resulting in better standing in market competition and profits. 

• Cost efficient: 

Enterprises do not have to spend a fortune and valuable time to hire an employee and train them, even after which there is no assurance that the employee can meet the performance bar. They can acquire a digital co-worker, and it will start delivering from the first day itself. There are no platform licensing costs involved too. Nor is the requirement to install additional tech equipment as a digital co-worker(s) can interact with all existing systems, legacy systems included. 

• Quick ROI: 

Quick ROI (Return on Investment) is the most crucial aspect of the benefits of acquiring a digital co-worker. The enterprise can experience ROI in just a few weeks after implementation. 

Challenges

As the rules of business conduct and competition are evolving, one needs to maintain pace with its dynamically versatile nature. There is an inherent implication of challenges.  

Here are some of the challenges:

• Budget Constraints: 

A lot of businesses run their operations on a tight budget. If there are not many tasks to automate, then having a Digital Co-worker may be expensive. 

• Information Silos: 

Information silos can take root in traditional methods of business conduct, impeding cross-departmental free-flow of information, thereby disrupting their work momentum. 

• Workforce Reduction and redesigning of the workplace: 

Necessity is the mother of invention. Though humans perform repetitive and mundane tasks, automating them will result in replacing them. But the skills which need human cognition will always be in the requirement. Augmentation and technology will lead to redesigning the workplace and will actually create further growth opportunities.

• Consumer Demand: 

Consumer needs are proportional to changes around them. The Rise Digital Co-workers should be designed to be adaptable; if not, then you may need help in incorporating changes or scaling up.

Take away

Among the many aftereffects of the pandemic, organisations across the globe were forced to change and adopt innovative ways of running their businesses. It resulted in catapulting the process of Digital transformation. This apart, increasing market competition, along with the great resignation phase, has further fuelled the advancement of automation. Thus, this has led to the rise of AI-enabled digital co-workers – the complete answer to automate processes and scale up businesses while augmenting the human workforce.  Do you wish to have a digital co-worker on your team who can perform high-volume and repeatable tasks? Check out Saxon AI’s DigitalClerx, where we can build a variety of AI-enabled digital assistants/workers tailored to your use case.

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