The Future of AI-Powered Automation

How Technology is Shaping Tomorrow’s Businesses

Written by Luke Simpson, Technology Director at the School of Automation

The automation space is profoundly transformed, driven by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). From machine learning and communication mining to intelligent automation (IA), these technologies are helping businesses improve efficiency, enhance decision-making, and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive environment. As we look ahead, AI-powered automation is not just a buzzword—it’s a fundamental shift in how organisations operate.

In this article, we’ll explore how key AI technologies are evolving, how they are being applied across industries, and what businesses should expect moving forward.

 

1.        AI and Machine Learning: The Core of Automation

At the heart of most AI-powered automation systems lies machine learning (ML)—the ability of systems to learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions with minimal human intervention. ML has expanded beyond its early applications in data analysis and now plays a pivotal role in process automation.

How It’s Changing the Game:

Machine learning algorithms can automatically optimise workflows, predict outcomes, and even recommend actions. In sectors like finance, ML-driven automation is used to detect fraud in real time. In healthcare, it helps in predictive diagnostics, improving the accuracy of early disease detection.

As businesses increasingly rely on data to make decisions, machine learning’s capacity to turn massive datasets into actionable insights is unmatched. This ability is making processes more efficient and helping organisations make smarter decisions, faster.

2.        Communication Mining: The Next Frontier in AI Automation

One of the more exciting developments in AI automation is communication mining. This technology uses AI to analyse unstructured data—like emails, customer service chats, or phone conversations—to extract actionable insights. It goes beyond traditional data mining, focusing on the complex world of human communication.

How It’s Shaping Businesses:

Imagine a company being able to automatically analyse thousands of customer service emails to identify key pain points, recurring issues, or opportunities for improvement. That’s what communication mining offers: the ability to turn unstructured conversations into structured data that drives change.

For example, in the customer support industry, AI-powered tools can sift through call transcripts, categorise common issues, and recommend proactive solutions. This doesn’t just boost efficiency; it enhances the customer experience by addressing problems before they escalate.

3.        Intelligent Automation: AI’s Practical Power

Another key player in the AI-powered automation landscape is Intelligent Automation (IA). Automating repetitive, rule-based tasks, frees up human workers to focus on more complex, strategic work. But where IA was once limited to simple workflows, it’s now being combined with AI and ML to handle more sophisticated processes.

How It’s Being Utilised:

In the past, IA was primarily used to automate back-office tasks like data entry or invoice processing. Today, AI-powered digital bots can analyse data, make decisions, and even engage in conversations with customers through chatbots.

For instance, in industries like banking, digital bots can now process loan applications by analysing applicant data and cross-referencing it with financial records. This allows for faster decision-making and reduces the chances of human error. By integrating AI, IA has become more adaptive, scalable, and intelligent, further accelerating business processes.

How AI-Powered Automation is Reshaping the Workforce

While AI and automation tools are undoubtedly increasing operational efficiency, they’re also reshaping the workforce. The conversation is no longer about AI replacing human jobs; instead, it’s about how humans and AI can work together.

Upskilling for the Future:

AI is great at handling repetitive and data-heavy tasks, but human intuition and creativity are still irreplaceable. This is why businesses need to focus on upskilling their workforce—training employees to use these technologies to their advantage. For instance, employees with basic coding knowledge can now use IA tools to automate tasks in their workflows, without needing to rely on a development team.

Additionally, employees who learn how to manage AI systems, interpret the insights generated by machine learning models, and supervise automation tools will be at the forefront of the workforce in the coming years.

Conclusion: Preparing for the AI-Powered Future

AI-powered automation is not just a trend; it’s the future of how businesses operate. Technologies like machine learning and communication mining, are transforming industries by boosting efficiency, cutting costs, and enhancing decision-making.

For businesses, the key to staying competitive in this changing space is embracing these tools and preparing their workforce through upskilling and training. At the School of Automation, we are committed to helping individuals and businesses alike harness the power of AI and automation to shape a smarter, more efficient future.

How Can The School of Automation Help You

Looking to deepen your knowledge of AI and automation? Our newly updated Training Catalogue offers over 20 specialised courses designed to equip you with cutting-edge skills in these transformative technologies. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to advance your career, we have the perfect course for you.

Discover the full range of courses today and start your journey toward becoming an automation expert!

Revolutionising Workforce Development: How Automation AI and Strategic Funding Can Transform Skills Training

The demand for advanced skills is rapidly outpacing supply, leaving a significant gap in the workforce. With automation and AI reshaping industries at an unprecedented rate, strategic funding initiatives are becoming crucial in transforming how we approach skills training.

“The Government has reported that the digital skills gap is estimated to cost the UK economy £63 billion per year,” a staggering figure to most of us and then a thought of what can we do about it?

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2024-0073/

The skills and training provisions across the UK are vast and complex. Various government initiatives, such as Apprenticeships, Skills Bootcamps, and short courses, aim to address the needs of people from diverse backgrounds and industries. All delivered via national or locally funded programmes via hundreds of training providers or Further Education organisations up and down the country.

At ABP School of Automation, our training programs are developed in collaboration with industry experts to ensure that our participants are equipped with cutting-edge skills that directly meet market demands. We strive to be part of the solution by supporting people in work to upskill or those out of work to gain new skills and start careers.

At ABP School of Automation we are contracted by the Department for Education to deliver Skills Bootcamps specifically focused on Intelligent Automation, to teach people the skills to use automation software that can transform and streamline business processes.

https://www.skillsforcareers.education.gov.uk/pages/training-choice/skills-bootcamp

Automation software is not new tech, it’s actually been around for quite some time and in the early days you would know it as Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Well like any piece of technology it has evolved, and as much as RPA was a fantastic tool to use and still is, it was not always the answer or the right tool to use when using technology to solve a business problem. The software vendors in this space have enhanced their platforms and now provide an array of tools and solutions to solve problems including AI, Machine Learning, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and more, now known as Intelligent Automation.

As technology evolves so should skills and training needs, the industry moves at such a pace that the concept of “Lifelong Learning” is so important. Our close links to industry, software vendors and clients positions us strategically to create quality training programmes designed to give people the most up to date skills to be able to enter the jobs markets and secure employment.

Funding

For many people and businesses particularly in the current climate the costs for training can seem like a luxury item. However, for some businesses the long-term cost of not upskilling your team and enabling them to use Automation software to maximise productivity, increase efficiencies leading to potential cost savings across the business maybe more costly.

At SOA part of our work to deliver training and make it accessible is to secure government funding to allow us to support individuals and businesses.

Through our contracts with Department for Education we can offer those who are unemployed Full Funding to undertake our 12-week training course.

For those people in work or employers who want to upskill their teams we have 70% Funding available to train your employees in Intelligent Automation skills.

Are you interested in 70% funding with the School of Automation? Get in touch today, places and funding are limited and based on current contracts for 2024.

The Future of Funding (UK)

Last month seen the UK Government change hands with the Conservative party making way for the new Labour government. As a training provider we watched this closely in the build up prior to election day intently listening to each side’s promises regarding skills and training investment. As we know Labour has taken the reigns and within days have announced a new body “Skills England” to work in partnership with the Department for Education.

The new Prime Minister and Education Secretary have announced the launch of Skills England to bring together the fractured skills landscape and create a shared national ambition to boost the nation’s skills.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/skills-england-to-transform-opportunities-and-drive-growth

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “They will help to deliver our number one mission as a government, to kickstart economic growth, by opening up new opportunities for young people and enabling British businesses to recruit more home-grown talent”.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Our first mission in government is to grow the economy, and for that we need to harness the talents of all our people to unlock growth and break down the barriers to opportunity”

While the words we hear are encouraging in support for skills, training and opportunity, we as a training provider wait to hear the detail. A month ago, we were familiar with the current funding mechanisms and had an idea of what had been made available by the previous government for the next number of years. The shift in power in government will certainly bring new changes, of that, I’m sure. There has been talk of greater flexibility in using the Apprenticeship Levy for employers but currently we await the detail after a period of consultation with key organisations across the sector.

For now, our focus remains on providing skills and training within Intelligent Automation throughout 2024.

• Professional training to those in work 70% funded.

• Professional training and career pathways for those not in work 100% funded.

Contact us now to start your automation training journey.

How the HSE adopted RPA and Partnered with SOA to Develop a High Degree of Self-Sufficiency

Late last year School of Automation’s (SOA) CEO Marc Cooper sat down with Kevin Kelly, General Manager for their RPA Centre of Excellence at the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland to chat about the organisation’s work with automation and their successful partnership with SOA.

The HSE has been working with RPA for several years, and last year employed two SOA trainees – Gillian Martin and Danny O’Connor who are now permanent employees at the organisation.

Have a read of our interview with Kevin, Gillian, and Danny, and check out the link for the full video interview…

How did HSE discover RPA?

Kevin Kelly: We first assessed RPA in 2019 along with other public sector organisations. There had been an RPA framework established and we agreed to commence two pilots in HR and finance – both highly transactional areas. We successfully completed those pilots in February 2020, but literally, two weeks later we were in lockdown.

One of the pilots was in HR in the area of Garda (Police) vetting – that automation was able to speed up the updating of staff members vetting stages. This became really important at the start of the pandemic as we were racing to get new staff onboarded and into front-line posts.

Soon afterwards we began working with the HSE’s Health Protection Surveillance Centre who provides data on Infectious disease surveillance. We kicked off a significant piece of automation work with them around the processing of positive Covid-19 cases and have put huge numbers through those small sets of automations.

In May 2021, the HSE was hit with a criminal cyber-attack. We got our RPA systems back up and running within a few months but we then had a backlog of cases and data to process. We found that we were able to clear a four-month backlog within two weeks as we scaled up to 100 robots. For us, that really demonstrated how RPA can help the organisation deal with unexpected surges in demand.

Then Omicron hit so we again upped our robot fleet to around 120 robots to deal with that, with incredible numbers processed in January/February 2022. To date, we have completed over 5 million transactions and 600,000 hours of equivalent manual hours.

How do you find talent and resources in this space?

Recruitment is mixed and a challenge to attract people with the right skill sets into the public sector, so it’s important to build a pipeline of talent coming through.

What attracted you to SOA’s model?

We established our RPA centre of excellence in September 2022 and now operate within eHealth where we see other areas already use traineeships. What we like about SOA’s proposal is that trainees are coming in with the necessary RPA skills. It was a no-brainer to at least try!

How have developers added value?

A number of projects the SOA-sourced developers are working on have really accelerated. They are not working solo, but with a senior developer as a mentor, so having two developers on a project means we are speeding up development time.

Did they developers meet expectations?

They are both hitting the ground running and we are seeing positive results already from them. I always got the sense SOA was keen to know the outcome for the trainee. We took on Gillian initially, and would love to have taken on more – but we wanted to make sure we had the work and a mentor to work alongside. When the time was right, we were able to bring in Danny.

And now a few words from our developers who are working permanently for the HSE on automation projects.

Danny’s story…

When Danny O’Connor originally applied for the SOA course, he thought that it was about mechanical parts and robotics – and although interesting, it was a bit of shock on the first week.

“For me I was always tech-savvy but not from a programming standpoint, I had always liked tech and computers, but I was interested in being a civil servant, so it’s very interesting to see the approach with the HSE and what our projects do for the overall HSE systems. I definitely didn’t see myself here a year ago!

“Now being employed and having a stable wage and job, means my partner and I are able to plan our wedding and we were able to have our first big Christmas for our little one. The stability of the job and everyone that works at the HSE is fantastic.”

Gillian’s Story…

Gillian Martin had taken an extended career break before embarking on a course with SOA, and now say she couldn’t have imagined this is where she would be a year ago.

“When I started on the training course I was at a point in my life where I had taken quite an extensive career break and then Covid arrived and I just took the opportunity to take a training course. I was really thinking about upskilling and developing new skills and after 12-week training course with SOA I had the opportunity to take on a year’s traineeship and the HSE placement, to then being offered a permanent contract.

“It was quite an adjustment to come back into a working environment but it’s been a really positive experience. There’s plenty of flexibility – working in office a day or two a week and then from home. It’s great to be involved with the HSE and see how our work is having such a positive impact.”

Find out more about SOA and the work we do here.