Achieve more with AI + RPA for business automation
Updated: Jan 19
In this video I explore the differences between AI and RPA and how they can help you transform your business by unlocking the full potential of business automation. I share a number of examples of how AI + RPA can automate different business processes. I would love to hear your feedback, so please let me know if you have any questions or comments about the video.
Transcript
Hi! In this video we are going to talk about the differences between Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Process Automation and how they can help your business achieve more!
To sum it up, you can think of these technologies like parts of the body. AI is like your brain because it thinks and learns, while RPA is more like your hands because it can actually do things, like interact with computer programs.
Individually these technologies will not be able to solve all of your business’ problems. But, when you combine the two, you will be able to automate almost any kind of business task that you can think of.
I’m Oscar ONeill, the director of DigitalStaff. At DigitalStaff we help business leaders like yourself to achieve more by automating repetitive digital office tasks so that you can spend less time on repetitive work and more time on the things that matter. At DigitalStaff we write custom computer programs using AI and RPA to automate your work.
Are you wondering how to use these technologies to make an impact in your business?
Visit our website at www.DigitalStaff.ca and schedule a free introductory call with me. We’ll get connected and talk about your business and about the problems you have and the tasks you want to automate.
Then we’ll create a plan together and figure out how to best automate that task for you.
Then we code the solution, get it going and finally, your work is automated!
Imagine that! No more time wasted on dull repetitive tasks!
So what are AI and RPA anyways? How do they differ? And how can your business take advantage of them? Let's get right into it!
Examples of Artificial Intelligence
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence which is essentially a computer thinking like a human. ChatGPT is a great example of an AI that you might have heard of. It's been pretty popular recently.
ChatGPT can understand your written commands, think about them, and then write a response. People are using it in all sorts of ways, to write emails and code, create project plans, learn new languages, almost any kind of thinking and analyzing task can be done by it.
But ChatGPT is just one example of an AI, there are even more out there. Like when you talk into your phone and it turns your voice into a text, that’s AI. Or like Midjourney, an artistic AI that creates pictures from a written description you give it. Or like when you use Google Photos and it automatically identifies you and your friends and family, and your dog in your photos.
I’m not going to get into a very in depth explanation of how these AIs are programmed, because it’s pretty complex. But the basic idea is that you teach the computer how to do a specific task by giving it lots of data and examples and rules. And similar to a person, the AI learns how to carry out whatever task it was given.
The problem with AI is that even though it can think, it can’t really do anything by itself. So it is limited to cases where you have to manually talk to the AI, tell it what to do, and then you still need to take that information and do something with it. If only AI could do more than just think…
Anyway, enough about AI! What about RPA and how is it more like your “hands”?
How RPA can fill in the gaps
Well, RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. I know, it’s quite the mouthful. RPA is a specific technology that uses “software robots” to mimic a person using a computer. It’s not a real, physical robot. Instead, a software robot is really just a computer program, kind of like an Excel macro on steroids. It uses the computer just like a person would, by moving the mouse, clicking on links and typing into apps with the keyboard.
Software Robots can do pretty much any task a person can, like filling out all your year end tax forms, copying and pasting data between programs, sending text messages or making phone calls, extracting information from websites, and making thousands of calculations a second. Okay, well maybe software robots can do a bit more than a person can.
As an example, let’s say a customer filled out an order form and sent it to you by email. RPA can read the email, get the order information, log into your accounting software, create an invoice, and finally respond to the customer with the invoice attached as a PDF.
To teach the RPA robot how to do work for your business is more of a manual process compared to AI. It’s actually more similar to teaching a new employee how to do the job.
To teach the RPA bot, you need to program each and every step of the task that it has to do. Tell it what programs to use, what information it needs, where to type it in, and how to handle different business situations.
Once you do all that, your robot is finally ready to be a productive member of your team.
Now that you know a bit more about AI and RPA, do you see the difference between these two technologies?
AI can think and analyze data, but it can’t actually send an email, format a Word document, or make an invoice in your accounting software. So by itself, AI can’t become an effective member of your team. AI can't do those tasks.
The good news is that RPA can. Since it can use the computer just like you would, it’s possible to automate almost any business task that you can think of!
Now you can see how Artificial Intelligence is like your brain and how Robot Process Automation is like your hands. AI can do the complex thinking tasks while RPA can actually interact with the same programs that you use on your computer.
Both of these technologies are really cool, but the real magic happens when you use both of them together!
By combining these two technologies, you can give your new digital staff member a brain and the hands to do the job.
How AI + RPA can automate your office work
For example you could automate your accounts receivable process by using AI to extract key details from your customers' payments, and then use RPA to input those data into your accounting system and update the specific invoices.
What's that, your customer hasn't paid yet? You could automate the follow up and have the robot send reminder emails or text messages.
And when your customer makes the payment, the robot can automatically update the invoice and match and reconcile the bank statements directly in your accounting software! And after that the Robot can even automatically thank the customer for their payment.
Now your bookkeeper can focus on other tasks because the bulk of the work on receiving payments is fully automated by the AI and RPA!
Or you could use AI to analyze all of your sales orders and automatically detect fraudulent transactions. And then after that, use RPA to create alerts and set up an incident report for your team to follow up on.
Or imagine you run a law firm or medical office and you have to file hundreds of new documents every day. You can use RPA to get each document and give them to the AI to read, analyze, and categorize. After that the RPA can do the actual work of updating the program and saving the files into the correct client's folder.
As another example, if you run a computer support company, you could use AI to analyze customer tickets and then you can use RPA to go in and actually do some preliminary checks and fixes before you have to go in and manually do that
The benefits of using AI and RPA together are immense. Before using these tools you probably felt you didn't have enough hours in the day to get everything done.
But if you incorporate these innovative technologies into your business strategy you will be able to get it all done! And furthermore, you will gain a competitive advantage by improving the efficiency and productivity of your business!
Your customers will be happier because they will be getting more consistent and reliable results.
And your employees will be happier too, because you are saving them from having to do robotic tasks and enabling them to focus on more creative and emotional tasks.
Are you wondering how to use these technologies to make an impact in your business?
Visit our website at www.DigitalStaff.ca and schedule a free introductory call with me. We’ll get connected and talk about your business and about the problems you have and the tasks you want to automate.
Then we’ll create a plan together and figure out how to best automate that task for you.
Then we code the solution, get it going and finally, your work is automated!
Imagine that! No more time wasted on dull repetitive tasks!
Imagine what you could achieve if you had the time to focus on the more important things in life!
Please like and subscribe for more cool videos about automation.
Thanks for watching and see you next time!