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Automation will have a starring role in 2022

Borya Shakhnovich, CEO, airSlate

As businesses shift towards a digital-first strategy, automation is taking the spotlight. Come next year, automaton technologies will continue to be adopted and move businesses in a forward trajectory with their digital transformation efforts, especially as hybrid workforces and digital collaboration platforms become the norm. This is a precipice to further innovation with RPA/AI across different industries, as demand drives adoption of new technology and companies continue to address worker shortages. Here are a few predictions for 2022 on how automation will continue helping companies better engage with customers and how it'll remain in the forefront of emerging technologies:

Application Adoption Needs RPA to be Most Effective

As more applications are adopted through digital transformation efforts, the demand for robotic process automation (RPA) will rise in conjunction. Being a data transfer mechanism between systems, the increasing adoption of RPA will need data parallelization and consistency. Simply put, new digital systems will not be able to be used to their full effectiveness without RPA added into the mix. Although it is possible that RPA may not be a long term product to rely upon, the demand now will dictate how the technology will survive in the coming years.

The Next-Gen of Digital Transformation is Automation

In 2022, we'll see industries incorporate automation into their digital transformation strategies. Digital transformation has been a mainstay in the marketplace for a while now, and has further progressed in this pandemic-caused remote world. In the wake of successful digital transformation, we'll see automation begin to touch all facets of businesses including fulfillment, accounting, advertising and marketing. This concept will percolate for the SMB with customer relationship automation, which I anticipate is where we'll see the most growth in the next decade.

A Less-Bullish Take on AI; The Human Element Will Remain in Automation

The notion is that automation is not as smart as people believe, but we should look at it through the lens of where the human component is still beneficial to automation and machine learning. In the same way mechanized automation changed heavy industry in the early 20th century (automobiles are not made by people anymore) people will remain incorporated into the design process. As we shift people away from the manual labor of screwing in the lightbulbs, people will be involved in the design of the robots screwing in the lightbulbs.

Buy-Now, Pay-Later will Raise Demand for Automation

In the next couple of years, we'll see automation become much more involved in the payments industry. The rise of fintech we've seen in the past 18 months will continue as consumers want more options, and automation will play a significant role as part of this. We'll specifically see ‘buy-now, pay-later' become a growth focus for many financial institutions and automation's role will grow in importance to improve predictability of revenue considering payments will be received over longer periods of time. The growing demand for this payment option will really change how we view business in a general sense and this shift in E-commerce is only the beginning of automation becoming more prevalent in everyday life.

Worker Shortage can be Relieved by Automation

There's no question some industries have been hurt by a shortage of qualified workers, and industries that are feeling this the most, such as supply chain and insurance, may need to consider automation solutions in order to remain operationally effective in the coming years. It's no longer a matter of wanting to accomplish tasks more efficiently, it's simply a matter of survival. As adoption increases in high-demand industries, it's important to note that automation will not take workers fully out of the equation. For example, cars are built by robots, but they have to be designed by people. This concept will remain true, and as automation becomes more widespread within different industries, demand for creative and critical thinking workers will remain prevalent.--

There's no doubt the momentum around automation and other technologies aimed at improving workflows will continue into next year. As we continue to live in a world grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, technology innovation has hit a stride that will carry it well into 2022 and beyond. I look forward to seeing other use cases for these types of solutions and how businesses will apply automation in new, creative ways.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Borya created the vision for our easy-to-use, automated, end-to-end document workflow solution. He is passionate about airSlate's products and ensuring that they meet the needs of our vibrant community of users.

He has 20 years experience developing and applying algorithms and models to drive business results and academic insights. Prior to joining airSlate, he founded Orwick, an online community for scientific research. He also was a professor of Bioinformatics at Boston University and a fellow in Systems Biology at Harvard University. He has published many research papers, including ones on the evolution of genetic structures, which he adapted to create airSlate's exceptional growth model.

Borya received a BS in Computational Biophysics from University of Illinois, a PhD in Bioinformatics from Boston University.