Computer Weekly recently profiled IPsoft’s industry-leading cognitive AI, Amelia and how she is defining the future of work and human productivity.
Computer Weekly recently published a thorough examination of Artificial Intelligence’s (AI’s) potential to reinvent the workplace. The feature, titled “How Robot Workers Can Augment Human Productivity” (sign-in required), prominently featured IPsoft and Amelia our industry-leading cognitive agent.
Author Karl Flinders details how AI is currently impacting industries around the world, before focusing on how cognitive technologies are now automating tasks that were once purely the domain of human workers.
“One example is IPsoft’s cognitive agent Amelia, which can be a banker, a tech expert, an HR manager, or whatever a business wants it to be,” Flinders writes. “The AI platform can now answer questions and solve problems ranging from technical issues to employees’ holiday requests described to it in natural language, whether it be verbally or through text.”
The piece explores how Amelia’s industry-leading Natural Language Interface (NLI) allows enterprises to automate the user experience (UX), while her backend integrations empower her to execute complex tasks at machine speed. This combination of decreased overhead costs via the automated UX, and amplified productivity through the automation of complex workflows is a potent recipe for accelerated business value
As an example of the transformation made possible by “digital workers,” Flinders highlights the presentation by Vodafone’s Director of Technology Shared Services Karine Brunet at this year’s Digital Workforce Summit. Vodafone initially “hired” Amelia to automate many of its internal IT service tasks several years ago, and has since expanded her scope to seven countries and three languages. Brunet commented at DWS that Amelia handles around 20,000 user chats per month, 53% of which are completed without any human intervention, though she predicted that the company would be increasing that autonomy to 65% “in the next few months.” Most importantly, the article highlighted Brunet’s observation that “the company achieved a return on its investment in Amelia through savings in just 24 months.”
The piece also reviews the potential disruption AI may have on the human workforce. In the short- and medium-term future, many roles handled by humans may become obsolete as machines successfully replicate highly regimented tasks. However, Flinders mentions the long-term outlook for human workers in the era of AI is far more positive.
“[T]he promise of AI creating many new jobs is a positive counter-argument,” Flinders writes. “According to Gartner, by 2020, AI will create more jobs than it eliminates. Humans have to train Amelia to work, after all, and by freeing up humankind from mundane tasks, who knows what future roles will be needed? According to a US Department of Labor report, 65% of today’s schoolchildren will eventually do jobs that don’t yet exist, with software robots as colleagues doing the mundane work.”
As Flinders notes, AI technologies will augment the human workforce. In the future, machines will execute the highly regimented (and frankly, boring) tasks while people take on roles requiring uniquely human qualities such as creativity and emotional intelligence. The workplaces of tomorrow will be hybrid partnerships of digital and human employees working together to achieve new levels of productivity.