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Cognitive Automation - Going beyond Rule-based RPA

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Cognitive Automation — Going beyond Rule-based RPA
indrastra.com/2018/09/Cognitive-Automation-004-09-2018-0006.html

September 4, 2018

By Rahul Guhathakurta

In recent times, organizations across the world from various industry sectors are pushing
themselves to become "Digitally Native" by adopting "Digital Transformation" as a
foundational pillar for the future — starting with Robotic Process Automation (RPA). And,
the primary objectives for the most of them are to achieve speed, accuracy, and reduction
in headcounts. The convergence of RPA, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML),
natural language processing (NLP), and cognitive platforms is potentially so disruptive that
Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, calls it the "Fourth Industrial
Revolution."
At the same time, there is a good share of apocalyptic warnings from various quarters that
the advancement of automation (cognitive form) in the workplace will create a "dystopian
society". To nullify such warnings, Karen Lachtanski aptly wrote, -"If an argument is to be
made against digital transformation, it is that the divide between high-level skills and low-
level skills will become wider, with little or no middle ground." In short, she clearly states
that there is no time to dwell on it. What going to set the future workforce apart is what we
as a part of that workforce are willing to do about it i.e, learn and evolve (or simply perish).

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Flowchart Attribute: Sample Automation Architecture for Banking Solution/Financial
Services Source: Virtusa

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

RPA is a basically a software tool that can automate routine tasks/sub-tasks in structured
mannered by eliminating human activities such as "copying and pasting data between
multiple applications" so that functional/cross-functional teams can focus on more value-
adding activities.

In December 2017 survey by Deloitte, "53% of the respondents have already embarked
on the RPA journey and a further 19% of respondents plan to adopt RPA in the next two
years". If adoption continues at its current level, RPA will have achieved near-universal
adoption within the next five years. One reason for such prediction is that RPA has become
advanced enough to take over the mundane tasks; prior to that, the technology wasn't quite
there.

Let us accept, broader the automation spectrum, more the elimination of manual
processes. For organizations to become digitally native it's very much important that an
RPA technology should be designed and deployed as an ideal tool to connect multiple
legacy systems rapidly and seamlessly such as Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud,
etc. Eventually, it should become a critical part of their value proposition just not for the
internal operations but also for the front and back-office functions.

The Addition of "Cognitive Intelligence" to create "Cognitive Automation"

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While RPA is expected to act as a first step in the adoption of automation, the rise of new
cognitive technologies (which can mimic human intelligence and judgment) is expected to
increasingly drive automation by matching the current wave of "Digital Transformation" with
the application of AI. In fact, cognitive technologies can be considered as a subset of AI,
further grouped into capabilities such as ML, NLP with semantic analysis, machine vision,
speech recognition, emotion recognition with sentiment analysis, and optical character
recognition.

On August 15, 2018, Deloitte and NICE launched a white paper - "The Future of
Operations — Moving Beyond Process Automation" which meticulously covered a
futuristic self-service banking scenario that utilizes a myriad of new generation cognitive
tools to stay ahead. The paper duly explained the concept called Robotic and Cognitive
Automation (R&CA) with a holistic and rich perspective on "how to practically assess and
tackle the next technological revolution in artificial intelligence and cognitive
automation". Unlike the RPA, given their probabilistic nature, cognitive technologies need to
continuously learn from their past actions and evolve more accurate algorithms.

One of the biggest constraints of RPA is that it needs structured data in the form of a
spreadsheet, a web form or a database for the robots to work flawlessly. Hence the need
for cognitive intelligence (driven by ML/NLP) arises to deal with the unstructured, or semi-
structured data and transform it into a structured form, which can then be later processed
by the robots.

WorkFusion’s Smart Process Automation (SPA) is one of the classic examples, which is, in
turn, paired with RPA to learn from the humans it supports. Using ML-driven data capturing
tools, inbuilt quality control, and algorithmic training capabilities, bots shadow human
actions and judgment calls to learn routine decision-making processes.
Kindly do note, many advertised AI-powered RPA solutions often turn out to be a basic
extension towards ML (Not purely driven by ML as such). Basically, such extensions are
quite useful, but they are based on recognition patterns, i.e., having a rule-based
dependency. Before selecting any such solution, a due diligence is recommended.

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No matter how lucrative cognitive automation seems to be, the first-mover's pursuit in this
space may invite risk. The best possible strategy is to test run a set of pilot programs and
then evaluate for a smoother downstream implementation. A set of proven pilot results can
easily help an organization to formulate a longer-term strategy.

The Road Ahead

In a newly published working paper by Lukas Schlogl and Andy Sumner from the think
tank, the Center for Global Development (CGD) explained the potential effects of robotics
and AI on global labor markets. When automation is used to augment human management,
traditional organizational orthodoxies, such as about spans of control, can be challenged.
The paper says it’s impossible to know exactly how many jobs will be destroyed or
disrupted by new technology. But, authors add, "it’s fairly certain there are going to be
significant effects — especially in developing economies, where the labor market is skewed
toward work that requires the sort of routine, manual labor that’s so susceptible to
automation".

As in the past, technology will not be a purely destructive force like the introduction of
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) pushed down the branch-wise headcounts but at the
same time banks got an opportunity to open more branches at the distant corners. In this
particular case, new jobs will be created; existing roles will be redefined, and workers will
have the opportunity to switch careers. But, the challenge to this generation will be in
managing the transition as the individuals who need to retrain for new careers won’t be the
young, but middle-aged professionals.

And from the government's end, policy-makers should embrace the opportunity for their
economies to benefit from the implementation of cognitive automation and boosting
productivity across. To achieve that, they should put in place well-defined policies (flexible,
not rigid) to encourage investment and offer market incentives to encourage continued
progress and innovation. At the same time, they must evolve and innovate policies (keeping
pace with time and evolving technologies) that help current and future workforces adapt to
the impact on their respective employment demographic. The dawn of "automation age"
has already arrived and it needs an extensive level of social re-engineering which must
include revamping the education and training systems, creating substantial income support
and pre-defined safety nets, as well as a necessary transitional support for those dislocated
or about to be dislocated.

About the Author:

Rahul Guhathakurta (ORCID: 0000-0002-6400-6423) is the founder of IndraStra Global, a

strategic analysis, and information services provider.

Cite this Article:

Guhathakurta, R., "Cognitive Automation — Going beyond Rule-based RPA" IndraStra
Global, Vol. 04, Issue No: 9 (2018), 0006, http://www.indrastra.com/2018/09/Cognitive-
Automation-004-09-2018-0006.html | ISSN 2381-3652

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