Page 9 - EngineerIT January 2022

ICT

Hyper automation is already proficient in more than a
The well-known people, process, dozen programming languages and can
technology framework has been around interpret simple commands in natural
since the early 1960s, and businesses language and execute them on the user’s
have often relied upon it to improve the behalf – making it possible to build a
operational efficiency of their employees natural language interface to existing
and tools. In many organisations, applications – and opening a world of
however, the Achilles heel of the possibility for line of business or end
framework has been the inability to users who do not require anything
change business processes radically and other than their “voice” to build new
fundamentally, largely due to the siloed experiences and interact with complex
nature of departments and the islands of back-end systems.
data that exist.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has De-Centralisation
been increasingly employed to address The evolution of IT strategies, over time
the less complex, department-centric have created a patchwork of different
process, but what if organizations want applications, services, architectures,
to take a wider, cross-company view and delivery models that have, in part, Christian Reilly
of automation to help free up human followed the very same trends that
resources for higher value tasks? Enter the industry has laid out. As concerns
hyper automation which, in summary, around privacy, ownership, trust and Will the confluence of needs, including
is the combination of several enabling lock in continue to elevate, there is the increased demand for collaboration in
technologies such as RPA, Artificial growing interest in Decentralised Apps a post-pandemic world, where the “office”
Narrow Intelligence, Process Discovery & (dApps) and how they might provide is no longer a building and corporations
Mining, Business Process Management answers for enterprise and commercial look to improve their carbon footprints by
and Low Code Workflow, delivered to help developers alike. dApps are digital reducing their global travel, point toward
automate processes in a wider context applications or programs that exist the rebirth of the Metaverse? Think
than traditional automation. and run on a distributed ledger and about the next generation of talent and
Hyper automation is not just are outside the control of a single what they are used to, collaborating and
about combining a string of enabling authority. They offer the potential for communicating through worlds in Roblox
technologies. It is also focused on key information such as user identity or and Minecraft.
redesigning the entire process by profile data to remain the property of The laws of physics and the current
rethinking the optimal number of steps the actual end user and not be stored technologies at hand prevent us physically
and using technologies to automate those or controlled by a service provider. moving from place to place at the press
steps across the entire enterprise. And A significant amount of the current of a button. But what if we could truly
it will be in high demand as the need for focus of dApps is in the area of DeFi or immerse ourselves in a series of digitally-
digital transformation and automation of Decentralized Finance and, although twinned, photo-realistic worlds that were
business and IT processes grows stronger. relatively new, is gathering momentum so compelling and gave such a feeling of
In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2025 the and likely to set the benchmark for other presence and collaboration that we began
market for software that enables hyper industries to follow. to believe that we had transcended the
automation will reach nearly $860 billion, physical boundary? There are plenty of
with a CAGR of 12.3%. The Metaverse companies out there with technology
The history of technology, and of human that could open such worlds. Facebook is
AI For Everyone innovation, is littered with great failures. betting its future on the metaverse. Apple
AI, or more specifically, Artificial From the Pebble Watch to the Laser Disc, has a significant amount of technology
Narrow Intelligence, is everywhere – it may be fair to say that simply by the that could compel them to enter the
from our cars to our online shopping law of averages, some ideas that seem space. And who would rule out Google or
experiences and is becoming more amazing at the time go on to become Magic Leap?
pervasive with every new iteration. yesterday’s news in almost the blink of an The great thing about peeking into the
As underlying technology is presented eye. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality future, is that you don’t have to be exactly
in a simpler way to consume, the and Mixed Reality have been with us for right. It’s all about exploring different
opportunity for incredible innovation quite a few years, and although promising thought processes and learning from the
will grow exponentially. One example much, have never really caught fire in past to open new possibilities that fuel
is OpenAI Codex – an AI that translates terms of widespread adoption. But that innovation and growth.
natural language to code. The system could be about to change. What a great time to be in tech! n

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