The era of intelligent automation
The Industrial Revolution automated blue-collar work two centuries ago. Today, intelligent automation (IA) is going to do the same for white-collar work. Think of chatbots. Many organisations now have these on their website, fielding public queries and freeing up human workers for other tasks.
A new book has been published on the subject. Titled “Intelligent Automation: Learn how to harness Artificial Intelligence to boost business & make our world more human”, the book uses real-life examples to show why it is imperative to adopt IA, and the benefits to be reaped.
The writers are Professor Jochen Wirtz, Vice Dean for MBA Programmes and Professor of Marketing at NUS Business School; industry expert and NUS Executive MBA alumnus Mr Pascal Bornet; and Mr Ian Barkin, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at SYKES.
“The primary purpose of this book is to share our passion for this new concept called IA that we strongly believe can improve our world significantly,” said Mr Bornet. “With this book, we would like to inform, inspire, and educate more people on the power of IA. In addition, while many books have been published on artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, or robotics, a comprehensive reference book has never yet been written on the topic of IA. It seemed essential to us to work towards establishing IA as a field, with its own frameworks, use cases, methods, and critical success factors.”
Prof Wirtz has witnessed the real-hand benefits of IA. He cited the example of a chatbot system developed in-house by the MBA admissions team at NUS Business School. “In the first month alone, it had over 20,000 conversations with potential candidates – can you imagine the productivity increase of our admissions team who can then focus on the more interesting and difficult questions and help candidates in their decision making? Have a look at this bot and test it - https://mba.nus.edu.sg/,” he urged.
Mr Barkin commented that we are living in an exciting world, at a fascinating time, when technological progress is exponential and continuously improving our lives. “Surprisingly, it might be technology that will make us rediscover what makes us human. The IA revolution that is underway will mainly be about just that. It will be about relearning how to live in harmony with our planet and with other people.”
“Intelligent Automation: Learn how to harness Artificial Intelligence to boost business & make our world more human” is now available at https://intelligentautomationbook.com.
By NUS Business School
