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How Intelligent Automation can impact the workplace

By altilia on February 22, 2023

Intelligent Automation is being embraced by many organizations to boost revenues, increase efficiency, and improve customer experiences.

As an evolution of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Intelligent Automation utilizes a Composite AI approach to leverage multiple techniques, such as machine learning (ML), computer vision (CV), and natural language processing (NLP) to handle complex processes and support business decision making.

Intelligent Automation has the potential to revolutionize the workplace, not only by freeing up time human workers dedicate to repetitive tasks but also helping companies to set new strategies and to develop new innovative products and services.

Unfortunately, this potential is still largely untapped, as most companies have yet to fully embrace it. Many opportunities are still left on the table.

Some of the best candidates for automation are business processes dealing with structured data (both digital and non-digital) with clearly defined stages; processes with seasonal spikes that cannot be easily met by a manual workforce (such as policy renewals, premium adjustments, claims payments); processes with strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs), requiring fast turnaround times (like transaction registration, order fulfilment, etc.).

Some notable use case applications also include:

  • Contract management: Intelligent automation can help to simplify all the steps needed to draft, send, redline, and execute contracts.
  • Sales processes: Here automation can provide first level assistance to prospects by providing direct answers to FAQs.
  • Quality and security compliance procedures: Intelligent automation can be leveraged to collect and pre-process data to perform initial assessments before involving a human analyst.
  • Finance: It can be used to streamline the procure-to-pay (P2P) process.
  • HR: Many tasks in the Hire-To-Retire (H2R) process can be automated.
  • Customer service: Many contact center tasks can be automated, as virtual agents can handle routine tasks, freeing up human agents to handle more complex customer inquiries, with great benefits for the customer experience.

Intelligent Automation has the potential to change the architecture of work by breaking it into smaller tasks and making it more events driven.

In the future, fewer tasks will need to be handled manually, leaving workers with more time to focus on digital learning and knowledge work, including learning how to proactively develop solutions using low-code platforms and tools.

The use of intelligent automation can boost the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes, enabling companies to meet higher standards of both customer and employee satisfaction.

However, as organizations increasingly adopt intelligent automation technologies, they need to be aware of the potential risks and hazards to avoid.

One of the main pitfalls is ignoring the importance of change management.

This could result in long-term issues if organizations overlook the importance of having their people aligned with their overall goals.

Additionally, employees may push back when automating processes that were previously carried out by a team of people. It is important to understand and take into account the concern and perceived lack of control when processes are suddenly automated.

Lastly, in order for any automation project to be successful it necessary to set clear goals in advance and to establish key metrics to evaluate the impact of the initiative and to measure the ROI.

Biggest challenges

Scaling intelligent automation is one of the biggest challenges for organizations: therefore, it is crucial for companies to be clear about the strategic intent behind their initiatives.

Success often depends on the ability of the organization to put “people’s needs” first: this means introducing new technologies in a way that is helpful and involves minimal disruption, and addressing real issues related to skills, roles and job content.

In other worlds, companies should not approach the problem like a race to be the first to introduce the latest technology and neither as a way to substitute people in managing operations.

Intelligent Automation can rather realize its full potential when it implemented as a means to support and augment human employees.

This allows a correct balance to be found between automation and manual control, leading to the best results when determining the success of a project.

The right approach

If organizations take the right approach, employees can also positively embrace automation and the opportunities it creates, rather than resist it.

In fact, automation can free up time on repetitive work, helping employees to focus on high-priority tasks and allowing them to move from administrative management to higher-value contributions.

Forward thinking organizations will try to shift workers into new roles as the current ones get progressively automated; this way employees can learn about new technologies and how they can be leverage them.

With this vision, upskilling programs, both internal and external, will be more and more a differentiating factor for companies to attract and retain the best talents.

For more information on how Altilia can help you gain the full benefits of Intelligent Automation, contact us here.

By altilia on February 22, 2023

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Why One Size Doesn't Fit All in Business Automation

Why One Size Doesn't Fit All in Business Automation

Imagine you need to renovate an apartment. You've got your trusty hammer in the toolbox, and it's served you well for hanging pictures and minor repairs. But now you need to fix a leaky pipe, repaint the living room, and rewire an electrical outlet. Suddenly, that reliable hammer seems completely inadequate. You quickly realize that to tackle these diverse tasks, you need a variety of specialized tools – a wrench for the pipe, brushes for painting, and a voltage tester for the wiring job. Don’t worry, Altilia is not rebranding itself as a DIY startup, but this scenario perfectly illustrates the current state of AI in business. Many companies, eager to exploit the power of AI, are reaching for a single, all-purpose AI solution, much like grabbing that trusty hammer for every home repair. They're turning to impressive, general-purpose AI models like GPT4 or Claude, expecting these tools to solve all their business challenges. While these models are undoubtedly powerful and versatile, they're not optimized for every specific business need. The limits of a universal AI agent of the Universal AI Agent GPT4 and Claude, developed by OpenAI and Anthropic respectively, are remarkable achievements in natural language processing. They can generate human-like text, answer questions, and even assist with simple coding tasks. Many businesses have integrated these models into their operations, using them for customer service chatbots, or general data analysis. However, these general AI models have limitations when it comes to understanding specialized business-domain information. For instance, a financial institution using GPT4 for customer inquiries might find it struggles with industry-specific terminology or regulations or to retrieve correctly the info from documents. The reality is that while these general AI models are impressive, they're not designed to handle the diverse and specific challenges that different businesses face. Each industry, each company, has its own unique processes, data types, and objectives. A one-size-fits-all AI agent often falls short in understanding these nuances. The Advantage of Specialized AI Agents This is where specialized AI agents come into play. By focusing on specific tasks, these agents can befine-tuned to understand the unique nuances and technicalities of your own organization and/or industry, work with your unique data formats, and align with each of your particular business processes’.  The result? Greater accuracy, improved efficiency, and better integration with your existing workflows. By focusing on creating multiple, specialized AI agents rather than relying on a single, generic solution, businesses can: Address specific challenges more effectively, improving problem-solving capabilities Improve accuracy in task completion, reducing errors and enhancing quality Enhance efficiency in specialized processes, saving time and resources Better integrate AI with existing workflows, minimizing disruption and maximizing adoption Maintain their unique competitive edge by leveraging AI in ways specific to your own business model This specialization allows businesses to use AI not just as a general tool, but as a set of expert assistants, each trained in a specific area of the business. It's the difference between having a general handyman and a team of specialized craftsmen – each brings expert knowledge to their specific domain.   None knows your business better than you do While AI technology itself can be replicated, the real competitive advantage lies in how that technology is applied to your specific business context. Altilia helps you build a lasting competitive advantage by creating custom AI agents that integrate perfectly with your unique business processes. Think of it as your personal AI factory, producing solutions specifically tailored to your company's operations and needs How Altilia improves business’s workflow Altilia's platform offers two main features that optimize work and data management by leveraging information from diverse sources scattered throughout the entire business knowledge ecosystem: AI Assistants for Employees: These intelligent co-pilots are optimized for your company's specific needs, drawing insights from a vast array of sources. Unlike general AI models, these assistants are trained on your company's data repository, including documents, databases, and digital assets spread across various departments and systems (e.g. mails, CRM databases, Google Drive, …). They assist your staff in their daily tasks by providing a unified view of the information they are looking for, enhancing productivity and decision-making. For example, in a customer service context, these assistants could instantly access and synthesize information from product manuals, internal wikis, customer interaction logs, and even email threads to provide representatives with holistic, context-aware solutions tailored to your specific offerings and policies. AI Robots for Process Automation: AI Robots automate processes that would otherwise be done manually by processing data from multiple sources across your organization. For instance, in a legal firm, an AI robot could be set up to automatically analyze incoming legal documents via mail while cross-referencing them with historical case files, legal databases, and regulatory updates scattered across various systems. It can then categorize cases, extract key information, identify precedents from past cases stored in different repositories, and even generate draft responses by combining relevant information from multiple sources. This level of intelligent automation goes far beyond what a general AI model could offer, as it's specifically designed to understand, integrate, and work with diverse legal documents and processes spread throughout the organization's knowledge base. Why choose Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base? Simplifying Custom AI Creation: we all know that good data is the key for a quality output. That’s why Altilia's platform makes your company data "AI-ready" through a sophisticated process. This includes OCR (Optical Character Recognition) analysis for document scanning and layout processing. By preparing your data in this way, Altilia ensures that it's in a format that's easily interpretable by AI agents. This is crucial for businesses dealing with large volumes of unstructured data, such as scanned documents or handwritten notes. Integrated Development Environment: The platform offers a simplified environment to develop AI applications that fit your specific knowledge needs and data types. This environment is designed to be user-friendly, allowing even those without extensive IT expertise to participate in the development process. You have the flexibility to create these AI agents yourself or have Altilia's experts create them for you, ensuring that the resulting agents are perfectly aligned with your business objectives. Adaptability: Unlike off-the-shelf solutions, Altilia's platform works with your specific data types, understands and fits your unique processes, and can be continuously refined to meet evolving business needs. This adaptability ensures that your AI solutions grow and evolve with your business, rather than constraining your processes to fit a generic AI model.   Conclusion As we return to our home improvement analogy, it's clear that just as a well-equipped toolbox is essential for tackling diverse home repairs, a suite of specialized AI agents is crucial for addressing varied business challenges. The one-size-fits-all approach, while tempting in its simplicity, often falls short in delivering the specific solutions that businesses really need. In the race to adopt AI, it's crucial to remember that true power comes from specialization and customization. While general AI models like GPT4 and Claude have their place, they shouldn't be seen as the end-all solution for business AI needs. Instead, they should be viewed as starting points – impressive technologies that demonstrate the potential of AI, but which need to be refined and specialized to truly transform business operations. Altilia's platform empowers businesses to move beyond generic solutions and create AI agents that truly understand and enhance their processes. As you consider integrating AI into your business, think beyond the one-tool approach. Consider how specialized AI agents could improve specific areas of your operations, much like how a particular tool can be used in renovating an apartment. Altilia makes it easy to create AI tailored to your needs. It's time to move beyond the myth of the universal AI agent and embrace the potential of specialized AI solutions.

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How to leverage unstructured data with AI

Introduction In today's digital landscape, businesses are drowning in data, but starving for insights. Gartner reports that 90% of new enterprise data is unstructured, growing three times faster than structured data. Yet, a 2019 Deloitte survey found only 18% of organizations effectively leverage these information. For the financial sector, transforming unstructured data laying in legal contracts into actionable insights is a complex and costly work that requires highly specialized analysts to organize data into user-friendly graphs. But is this the only available solution?  Altilia's smart Knowledge Base solution offers a powerful answer. Our platform tackles the unstructured data challenge, turning the information into a competitive advantage. Whether you're an accountant juggling diverse client information or a financial analyst reading countless contracts, Altilia's smart knowledge base could be the key to unlocking your data's true potential. Join us as we explore how Altilia's solution can help you harness the power of unstructured data, streamline processes, and drive informed decision-making in an increasingly data-driven world.   Introducing Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base is our answer to the unstructured data problem. It's a powerful tool that turns messy, scattered information into useful, organized knowledge. But, what is a smart knowledge base? Think of it as an intelligent digital library. Unlike a regular database that just stores information, a smart knowledge base can understand, organize, and even use the information it contains. Therefore, the library not only stores everything you upload, but also makes connections between different pieces of information, answers your questions, and even helps you make decisions. That's what makes it "smart" – it doesn't just hold knowledge, it actively helps you use it. How is Altilia's solution different from other solutions?  Gathers All Your Data: Our system collects information from many different places. It doesn't matter if it's scanned papers, emails, or database entries - our platform brings it all together in one place. Understands Your Information: Our AI doesn't just read your data, it understands it. It can make sense of complex documents, pull out important details, and even grasp context and subtle meanings. Easy to Use: You don't need to be an AI expert to use our platform. We've made it simple. There's a search bar to find information quickly, and you can ask questions in your native language. Works Automatically: Once the setup of a workflow is completed, our system can do complex tasks on its own. It can take the new documents that have been uploaded, extract information from them, and even create detailed reports without the need to personally go through each step.  Trustworthy: We know the quality of the result is important, especially when writing a report or a legal document. That's why our system can show you how it reached its conclusions. This is crucial for businesses that need to follow strict rules. By combining these features, Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base changes how you use your data. It's not just about storing information - it's about making that information work for you. It helps you gain insights, work more efficiently, and make better decisions across your entire organization.   The Financial Analyst's Challenge Meet Sarah, a seasoned financial analyst working for a large investment firm. Sarah's job involves analyzing complex reports from rating agencies to guide investment decisions. Let's see how Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base transforms her workflow and solves her data analysis dilemma. Sarah's Typical Day Before Altilia: Information Overload: Sarah receives a comprehensive report from a major rating agency: A 200-page PDF document with text, tables, and graphs Supplementary data in spreadsheets Some reports are inside data silos, making difficult to retrieve the correct information Related news articles and press releases Time-Consuming Analysis: Sarah spends days: Manually reading through the lengthy report Copying data from PDFs into spreadsheets for analysis Cross-referencing information with past reports and news Risk of Oversight: With so much information to process: Important details might be missed It's challenging to spot trends across multiple reports Connecting related information from different sources is difficult Delayed Insights: Because the analysis takes so long, Sarah often struggles to provide timely investment recommendations to her team. Sarah's Transformed Workflow with Altilia: Centralized Information: All the information, regardless of its original format, is now in one place: The PDF report is automatically processed and its content extracted Spreadsheet data is integrated into the system Relevant news and press releases are collected and linked Automated Information Extraction: Altilia's AI does the heavy lifting: Automatically reads and understands the entire report Extracts key data points, trends, and risk assessments Organizes all information into a structured, easily searchable format Intelligent Search: Sarah can now find any piece of information in seconds: Uses natural language queries like "Show me all companies with a credit rating downgrade in the last quarter" The system understands context, finding related information even if it's not explicitly mentioned Automated Analysis: The platform generates insights automatically: Compares current ratings with historical data Identifies trends and anomalies in the agency's assessments Creates visualizations of key financial indicators Enhanced Accuracy: With AI-powered analysis, the risk of oversight is significantly reduced: The system cross-references information from different sections and sources Any unusual data points or discrepancies are flagged for human review Sarah can always double check the results proposed by the AI Agent and the resources used. Faster Insights: Sarah now spends less time on data processing and more on high-level analysis: Quickly identifies key trends and potential investment opportunities Provides more timely and comprehensive recommendations to her team The Result: With Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base, Sarah transforms from a data processor into a strategic advisor. She can analyze reports more thoroughly, provide faster insights, and add more value to her firm's investment decisions. The investment firm benefits from more timely, accurate, and insightful financial analysis, helping them make better investment choices in a fast-paced market.   What's Next for Unstructured Data? The world of data is changing fast, and unstructured data is leading the charge. So, what's coming next? Here's our insights into the future: Smarter AI: Imagine AI that can understand data like a human, but faster and without getting tired. That's where we're heading and we are working on an AI that can make sense of even the trickiest information. Speed is Key: In the future, waiting for answers will be old news. We're moving towards systems that can give you insights right away, as soon as new data comes in. Keeping Data Safe: As we use more data, keeping it safe becomes super important. Future systems will need to be like a fortress for your information, while still making it easy for you to use. Data for Everyone: You shouldn't need a PhD to understand your data. We're working towards a world where anyone can ask questions and get answers from their data, as easily as using a search engine. Contrary to what it might look like, the future of data is exciting, and a bit wild. There will be more data than ever, coming from places we can't even imagine yet. But with the right tools, like Altilia's Smart Knowledge Base, you won't just keep up – you'll be ahead of the game. Ready to step into the future of data management? Let's turn your data challenges into your biggest strengths, today and tomorrow. Book a call with our experts to explore how Altilia’s smart knowledge base might fit your business.

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Data Manager Online: AI-Powered Solutions for Unstructured Data

Data Manager Online: AI-Powered Solutions for Unstructured Data

Harnessing the power of unstructured information means taking full advantage of up to 80% of a company's digital assets. Data Manager Online, a leading Italian technology publication, recently featured Altilia in an article exploring innovative solutions for dealing with unstructured data.  In the article "Unstructured Data? Altilia has the solution", Massimo Ruffolo, CEO and Founder of Altilia, gives a glimpse into a future where advanced AI doesn't just process documents - it turns them into actionable insights, transforming the way companies across industries manage, interpret and use their most valuable resource: information. Key Insights from the Article 80% of business data is unstructured: Unstructured data makes up the vast majority of an organization's information assets and is growing exponentially, and managing this vast amount of information is a significant challenge facing every modern organization. AI transforms documents into actionable insights: Altilia's technology, including Generative AI, enables more sophisticated data control and automated document creation through 'active insights', turning raw and unstructured information into valuable knowledge that can be shared across the organization. Built to adapt to the needs of any industry: Customized AI assistants are designed to adapt to the unique needs of specific industries - from banking to pharmaceuticals - the platform addresses each domain-specific knowledge and process-specific requirements to ensure optimal performance. Humans and AI: Altilia's reinforcement learning approach allows humans to review the actions of AI assistants and provide feedback to train them for future processes. This continuous learning enables the AI system to improve its performance over time. One Platform to Rule Them All: The single solution approach simplifies the management of unstructured data for organizations, eliminating the need for multiple tools and streamlining operations.   As the digital landscape evolves, Altilia promotes an ethical and responsible approach to AI adoption, contributing to the future of work by embracing technological revolutions in Italy. Click here to read the full article (in Italian).

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