By Chris Duddridge, Area Vice President & Managing Director UKI, at automation firm, UiPath, imagines what work might look like when we all have a software robot.
When Microsoft was still in its infancy, Bill Gates and Paul Allen set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home. In retrospect, it sounds unambitious, and obvious that we should all have a computer – just think of the irreversible manner in which it has shaped our communication and our lives, both in and outside of the office, and you will understand why computers are now ubiquitous.
However, it was a bold idea at the time, and a lot of people thought they were out of their minds for imagining it to be possible. After all, the average house price in 1975 Britain was £10,388, while a computer cost £6,966. You would have needed a second mortgage to get one. Yet Gates and Allen thought they could get one in every home – and in time, they did.
Fast-forward 45 years and there’s a new vision for technology in our lives and at work: a robot for every person. We’re not talking about humanoid robots, unsteadily tottering about trying to do the cleaning, or drones efficiently delivering parcels – we’re talking about software robots.
The type that can use a computer just like you or I. A digital helper that can “see” what’s on the screen and complete simple, repetitive tasks like responding to basic emails or copying and pasting information from one place to another to keep records up-to-date.
At first glance, the thought of a software robot for every person might sound as unlikely as the ambition to get a PC on everyone’s desk. Yet, just like the speed at which Microsoft’s vision became a reality, this too, is gaining pace.
The technology behind software robots, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), is quickly entering workplaces across the UK and capturing the imagination of CIOs, HR professionals, finance department heads, and more. Newspapers are writing about software robots[i] (or are being written by them), and unions are thinking about how they might affect the workplace[ii]. This isn’t something that’s going to happen in the distant future. It’s happening now. It won’t be long before new starters at work get a laptop, mobile internet, a phone… and a robot.
And while this year has presented unprecedented challenges of its own for employers, the COVID-19 crisis has in fact accelerated the use of software robots, with many now being common, in companies of all sizes and across multiple sectors.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a robot
But what does a future where everyone has a software robot look like? If you haven’t experienced working alongside one, it’s hard to know what they are capable of and how they can help. This is perhaps the biggest problem the creators of these automations face. It’s hard to “get” what they mean when they talk about software robots.
For that reason, I’ve spoken to some of my colleagues to find out how this technology is helping them on a daily basis. Arif Khan, a customer success manager, uses robots all the time. He’s been working from home like many of us during lockdown, and prefers to work with a large screen on his desk rather than having two or more smaller ones. This presented a problem when it came to video conference calls.
When Arif shared his screen, the resolution meant that other people on the conference call would see everything really small. He therefore had to change the resolution ahead of every call. A small, yet irritating manual task that happened multiple times a day. To resolve this problem, he created a software robot to complete the task for him with the press of a button. The robot also paused Slack and email notifications for him, preventing the constant pinging we often hear on these calls. Of course, the robot was also able to undo the process once the call had finished.
Jan Van Eijck, another of our customer success managers, has digital assistants that help him to better serve customers by getting a head start on his working day. He begins the day with a robot setting his Slack status for him without having to actually log in. He also has an assistant that helps him to collate all of his daily meeting notes and add them to a system so colleagues can see records of his customer interactions. Another robot collects information about which customers have asked for assistance, so he can quickly see which ones need a response.
The most recent one that Jan has developed collates information and sends him an email outlining how satisfied his customers are, what issues he needs to deal with and what opportunities there may be to offer additional help and advice. The robot does this at the start of the week, so when he sits down on a Monday morning he has a clear view of what he needs to do. No more scrabbling around to write a “to-do” list for the first half hour of the day.
Software robots: simply brilliant
As it turns out, software robots are pretty simple to build and quite straightforward to use. They’re not frightening. They’re not complicated. They’re not taking our jobs from us. They’re just little helpers that can do simple tasks and enable us to accomplish much more than we would without them.
Of course, we’re not limited to simple activities. The possibilities are endless. In the healthcare sector, we’ve recently seen software robots that can undertake complex tasks, such as organising, interpreting, and validating medical documents submitted by patients for automated patient analysis and enrolment into medical programmes.
When it comes to each and every one of us making use of a digital assistant, there are countless ways in which they could help us, and potential for them to free up hours of time over the course of a month. In fact, if a digital assistant saved each of us just 20 minutes a day, that’s about two weeks of time a year. With 32.92 million people aged 16 years and over in employment[iii], that could bring about a huge productivity boost for the UK, helping us become more focussed on the important things.
These assistants are brilliantly simple and simply brilliant. Just imagine a world where we all had one. Where we could delegate drudgery to our digital buddies. We could let our software robots take on the tedious tasks, freeing us to do the jobs we were hired for. The world of work might not look a great deal different, but it would certainly feel a bit less stressful and dull.
[i] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3
[ii] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/robots-replace-human-workforce-after-21926843
[iii]https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/uklabourmarket/august2020
Wanda Rich has been the Editor-in-Chief of Global Banking & Finance Review since 2011, playing a pivotal role in shaping the publication’s content and direction. Under her leadership, the magazine has expanded its global reach and established itself as a trusted source of information and analysis across various financial sectors. She is known for conducting exclusive interviews with industry leaders and oversees the Global Banking & Finance Awards, which recognize innovation and leadership in finance. In addition to Global Banking & Finance Review, Wanda also serves as editor for numerous other platforms, including Asset Digest, Biz Dispatch, Blockchain Tribune, Business Express, Brands Journal, Companies Digest, Economy Standard, Entrepreneur Tribune, Finance Digest, Fintech Herald, Global Islamic Finance Magazine, International Releases, Online World News, Luxury Adviser, Palmbay Herald, Startup Observer, Technology Dispatch, Trading Herald, and Wealth Tribune.