In nearly all industries, artificial intelligence (AI) is held up as the vision for the future, with the promise to transform every aspect of business. But not all hype lives up to reality. We’ve been waiting for personal jet packs for decades, and a true driverless car — which employs AI technologies — remains years away from mainstream adoption.
Intelligent process automation (IPA), however, is already transforming how businesses get work done. One analysis firm estimated the global market hit $13.6 billion in 2022. That figure is expected to double by 2027. As IPA becomes more mainstream, companies are learning how to automate higher-level functions, building on the utility of robotic process automation (RPA) tools to wring more ROI from their investment while freeing up humans for more value-added tasks.
What is Intelligent Process Automation?
Intelligent process automation is a technology solution that combines robotic process automation, AI, natural language processing, and machine learning to not only perform repetitive and routine tasks but also to become more efficient over time as it learns a particular task. Like all automation tools, IPA strives to accomplish tasks that humans usually perform. IPA can be combined with RPA and other tools to accomplish a wide range of automated tasks that users can set up once and then run on a schedule or when prescribed conditions change. Here’s how:
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
RPA orchestrates the various automated processes that come together for intelligent process automation. RPA bots can monitor inboxes, move files, enter data into systems and applications, and process structured data.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI powers a robust classification and categorization engine to ensure rapid document processing for unstructured data.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
NLP also aids in the classification and organization of data extracted in an IPA workflow and can recognize more advanced information like names of people and organizations.
Machine Learning (ML)
Unassisted ML algorithms enable automatic self-learning of previously unseen documents. This allows your IPA system to learn which document information to capture, and gets smarter and more accurate over time.
IPA goes beyond standard process or rules-based automation personified by RPA to bring deep learning and intelligence tools to the process.
What Are the Benefits of Intelligent Process Automation?
Employing IPA solutions allows businesses to automate more parts of a workflow, leaving humans free for more value-added tasks that automation can’t perform. This results in faster processes and more streamlined interactions that can bring greater efficiencies and return on investment. According to McKinsey, companies that are experimenting with IPA often experience ROI in excess of 100%. Leveraging IPA also translates into automating a greater percentage of tasks, a reduction in process time of 50%+, and run rate cost efficiencies of up to 35%.
What is the Difference Between Intelligent Process Automation and Robotic Process Automation?
Robotic process automation (RPA) leverages software robots to interact with disparate systems and applications to manage repetitive, mundane tasks that otherwise burden your busy workforce. By definition, RPA is rules-based and is ideal where a human performs specific functions or tasks in prescribed ways. RPA is also ideal for handling your structured data.
IPA provides a higher level of process automation, with the ability to tackle more complex processes. IPA is more flexible in the tasks that it performs, including those that require unstructured data and the use of judgment or analysis to complete a task. As IPA deployment continues, processes will become more efficient.
IPA encompasses RPA tools and the two can be used together for full end-to-end process automation by leveraging the strengths of each.
What are Some Intelligent Process Automation Examples?
Organizations handle large volumes of documents that must be collated, sorted, and routed to the appropriate department. Intelligent process automation can recognize and separate common document types (invoices, orders, forms, etc.) and not only route those to the appropriate department, but also pull out the appropriate line-item data (invoice totals, order items) for further movement and manipulation with RPA processes. Examples of this include:
Mortgage Processing in Banking
Streamline mortgage processing with intelligent automation that ensures loan applications are complete and documents are automatically uploaded into your loan origination system (LOS), decreasing the time between application and close.
Read a mortgage processing case study >
Invoice Processing in AP
Give invoice processing a boost in your AP department by having intelligent process automation eliminate the manual sorting and classification of documents. Automatically capture and classify relevant data elements in invoices, and send it directly to your ERP or other critical applications.
Download “Intelligent AP Automation: Say Goodbye to Template Building” >
Custom Declarations in Transportation and Logistics Industries
Remove the complexity from customs declarations by using intelligent process automation to get the correct information into the correct box on the correct form. Automatically capture, extract, and input data–both structured and unstructured–to and from disparate systems and applications.
Read a related intelligent document processing case study >
Where Can Intelligent Process Automation Help Your Organization?
IPA can support greater productivity and efficiency on business processes nearly any place where RPA already is being deployed. IPA solutions work in conjunction to automate an increasing number of processes and higher process levels within a workflow, performing tasks that humans formerly did. Companies investigating the addition of artificial intelligence to their processes should understand that having a stable and robust RPA solution is a pre-requisite to automating higher-level workflows. Here’s what E.J. Stanley, Solutions Engineer at Fortra, has to say about the impact of IPA on an organization:
"As a Solutions Engineer deeply involved with automation at Fortra, I have observed the substantial efficiency boosts that intelligent process automation can bring to an organization. IPA extends beyond the capabilities of standard RPA by enhancing and streamlining complex workflows. It's about taking automation to a higher level, focusing on process refinement, and extracting more value from the data we handle every day.”
“With tools like Automate Intelligent Capture, we're not just performing tasks, we're optimizing how these tasks are managed and executed, leading to significant gains in productivity and accuracy. As businesses continue to navigate an increasingly data-driven world, the integration of robust process automation tools is not just beneficial, it's essential for any organization looking to enhance their operational efficiency and maintain a competitive edge.”
Intelligent Process Automation: Learn More
Take a deeper dive into how IPA can make sense of all the data types coming through your organization.
