Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Is Replacing Human Workers

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a category of software that operates in a “robotic” manner to repeatedly complete basic tasks that might otherwise have been done by human workers. Examples include editing electronic files or forms and checking them for completeness or accuracy. This technology is being widely applied to back-office tasks in such departments as human resources (including hiring, and systems that help employees navigate their health insurance and other benefits), insurance claims and expense reimbursement. RPA and generative AI have very broad implications for many types of office work, including the work done by professionals such as accountants and lawyers. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dramatically accelerating this trend.

Amelia (amelia.ai), formerly IPSoft, Inc., an automation software company, developed a white-collar robot named Amelia that is used for help desk, customer service and a variety of other call-desk operations. The unit speaks 20 languages and has the appearance of a young, blonde blue-eyed woman. Allstate Insurance Co. uses Amelia to handle most of its in-house IT service desk requests. The company’s call-center employees use it to help them solve customer inquiries faster and more efficiently. Telefonica also uses Amelia to handle 4.5 million customer calls per month. Amelia launched the Amelia HyperAutomation Platform and custom consumer facing avatars, as well as Amelia v4 and Digitalworkforce.ai for cloud-sourced pre-trained digital employees. In August 2024, SoundHound AI, Inc. acquired Amelia for $80 million.

Accenture Strategy reported that less than one-half of global companies’ accounts payable activity was automated as of 2019. This kind of automation was expected to rise to 80% by 2025, particularly in the areas of invoice processing and expense reports. For example, Airbus SE recently invested in software from AppZen, Inc. to automate expense report processing. The technology matches reports against a database of accepted vendors, expense types and amounts to find anomalies. It also checks for receipts and is capable of recognizing more than 100 languages.

The banking industry is spending an estimated $150 billion annually on technology including RPA. An industry analyst at Wells Fargo estimated that all U.S. banks in total could cut more than 200,000 jobs between 2019 and 2029. The analyst expects artificial intelligence to reduce mortgage processing costs by 10% to 20% while cloud-based computing will also yield major savings in expenses. Global banks, such as UBS, are also following this trend, investing heavily in labor-reducing technologies such as RPA.

Amazon has introduced many new cloud-based call center tools. One utilizes artificial intelligence to assist call center agents in answering questions quickly, while another speeds the customer authentication process. Amazon Web Services offers Amazon Connect, a cloud-based contact center product, that enables customer services over voice and chat; manages follow up tasks; and provides contact center automation services.

Meanwhile, GenAI Agents (chat boxes and call centers powered by AI), including the ability of tools like ChatGPT to write intelligent answers and search results on-the-fly, go far beyond writing essays and providing customer service. These tools are now providing great assistance in the accounting, consulting and market research fields, including work in writing proposals, researching law and regulations, and finding facts. Product suggestions and search results on websites have become significantly more effective, thanks to incorporation of AI-based search engines that have deep understanding of a company’s product offerings and the ability to understand users’ questions in a way that lead to the most relevant answers. This leads to systems that literally act as virtual salespeople, which will boost revenues at retailers and also increase customer satisfaction. The ability of these tools to study massive amounts of background and reference data (machine learning) could lead to virtual teachers, counselors and business advisors.

The net result of the growing use of RPA and GenAI could be a significant reduction of human employees. This will be particularly true in call centers and other BPO (business process outsourcing) centers.

Agentic AI: is enabling users to create their own agents. AI agents take action and solve problems, far beyone merely providing information. By design, agentic AI is autonomous and goal-oriented. Its capabilities can improve with learning from data and its experiences over time. Examples include agents that provide customer support, analyze health patients' conditions or respond to cybersecurity threats in real time. Salesforce offers Agentforce, which can create AI agents capable of automating customer service, marketing campaigns and business procurement. For example, a business procurement agent can prequalify business leads and set up appointments with potential customers with a human sales representative. Customer service AI agents are rapidly taking the place of call center staff. This may profoundly affect the outsourcing business in India and the call center business in such nations as the Philippines.

Lending Firm Klarna Reports Spectacular Savings in Employee Cost Through the Use of AI-Driven Chatbots

Sweden-based Klarna, a pay over time (buy now-pay later) company, reported its chatbot customer service agent is doing the work of 700 full-time human agents. The agent has handled two-thirds of the company’s customer service chats and is responsible for a 25% drop in repeat inquiries. Call times have dropped from 11 minutes to two minutes.

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