How much time does a staff actually spend doing manual tasks? Research has shown that about 40% of office workers’ time is spent on administrative work in Singapore. This causes a staggering $36.5 billion SGD/year of lost productivity!

Another piece of research suggests that staff only spend a third of their day doing essential works. The remaining two-thirds of their day is spent on manual tasks.

The great thing about all those necessary, but time-consuming tasks, though? They’re relatively easy to automate now with Artificial Intelligence (AI). All teams can spend less time shuffling papers and invest more time into doing more valuable work.

Save to Your Reading List: 5 Reasons Why Cognitive Automation Is Smarter Than Rule-Based RPA

What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence is a field of study where machines can “think” and make decisions in ways similar to a human, without fixed rules. Using artificial intelligence can provide enormous benefits in various ways, especially those related to digital data.

A.I can be a tremendous help for office automation. In different branches and industries, AI accelerates and enhances processes thanks to its capacity for constant improvement based on experience.

Artificial Intelligence collects and processes data from several sources, more than what a human alone could do. They identify specific points, eliminate what is unnecessary, expand their network and manage the information to provide the administrator with a clear answer to what they are looking for.

Categories of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Oxford Dictionary defines Artificial Intelligence as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.”

The term “artificial intelligence” is very broad and includes various types of computer-based machine abilities. Humans do many things intuitively such that we may not recognize our own intelligence in doing “intelligent” tasks versus “simple” tasks that are based on rules.

We can broadly classify A.I into the following categories.

1. Image-based recognition/detection

The ability of a device or software to recognize objects, persons, locations, and behavior in images is known as image recognition. It recognizes images via a camera system by combining computer vision technology with artificial intelligence and qualified algorithms.

2. Voice/speech recognition

A software or program’s ability to accept and interpret dictation or understand and carry out spoken commands is known as voice or speaker recognition. With the advent of AI and intelligent assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana, voice recognition has gained popularity and use.

3. Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Natural language processing is a branch of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with how computers communicate with human language, especially how to program computers to process and analyze large amounts of natural language data. Rooted in Asia, Gleematic can process many Asian languages such as Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc.

4. Machine Learning

Machine learning is a form of data analysis that automates the development of analytical models. It’s a subfield of artificial intelligence focused on the premise that computers can learn from data, recognize patterns, and make decisions with little to no human input.

More About What Is Machine Learning? All Your Questions, Answered

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in office automation

AI has a lot of room for creativity and growth, and it will continue to change the world in a variety of ways in the future. The following are the most notable Artificial Intelligence advantages that are helping to reshape the office as we know it today.

  • Identifying processes suitable for automation
  • Reading/ interpreting/ classifying data in documents
  • Recognizing speech and turning it into text
  • Classifying documents according to the logos and letter-heads
  • Forecasting demand for goods
  • Others

Automation frees up you and your employees up to be more empathetic, to focus on things like the customer experience, employee engagement, and workplace culture.

The ultimate way that AI is transforming the workplace: it’s making it more human.

Hyper Automation & Predictions in 2022

With the continuous development and usage of advanced technologies in businesses, various important AI trends are expected to occur in the year 2022. Hyper Automation is expected to be one of the finest AI trends, it often utilizes sophisticated technologies to fulfill intelligent process automation, such as machine learning, robotic process automation, and artificial intelligence. This allows businesses to decrease manual labor and increase productivity in their various processes.

Artificial intelligence itself has transformed organizations in their operations. It is expected that there will be an expansion at a CAGR of 44% to US$9 billion by 2022 in the artificial intelligence and machine learning industry. More businesses will attempt to adapt to this digitally advanced age and incorporate artificial intelligence in their operations.