The Art of Automation
Discover how AI-powered automation helps people reclaim up to 50% of their time at work
"The Art of Automation", based on a podcast of the same name, is a practical guide for leaders who need to understand and evaluate how automation technology can transform their organization, business processes, and models. It combines both an aspirational and pragmatic overview of automation technology, its core capabilities, and the value they generate from a business perspective. It describes various real-world examples, implementations and approaches, with industry-specific and cross-industry use cases.
Automation technology has been around for a long time, but in the past several decades, we've seen an explosion of information work in the enterprise. When every business is a digital business (which is the case today), the proliferation of data is massive—far greater than humans can cope with alone. And making sense of this mass of data is just the kind of work that classic automation doesn't address. Enter modern artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which can use algorithms to make sense of structured and unstructured data at a speed and scale no human could approach. Making this combination of Automation and AI, which we call "AI-powered Automation," work best for you is, as Jerry says, an art.
Leaders who are unsure of where to start their automation journey can use the examples in this book as a guide for selecting projects and technologies with techniques designed to speed up the automation of "bite-size" activities that deliver immediate return on investment (ROI) without having to wait until the entire end-to-end process is automated.
Our goal is to cover all the key topics with which you need to be comfortable in order to positively impact your organization as it evaluates and implements AI-powered automation technology. Even if you are already familiar with the basics, the early chapters will reinforce your understanding of the most important concepts (e.g., closed-loop automations) and technologies (e.g., Robotic Process Automation and AIOps) and explore general use cases. As you dive deeper, you will be systematically introduced to specific topics with details that will enable your organization to successfully implement solutions that leverage AI-powered automation. The book also provides industry-specific points of view on automation through a series of chapters that capture interviews with luminaries in the fields of healthcare, insurance, retail, and financial services. Several chapters are co-written by some of the industry's most notable experts in AI and automation. Many of these experts can be heard on a corresponding episode of The Art of Automation podcast.
Gennaro (Jerry) Cuomo is a prolific contributor to IBM's software business, producing products and technologies that have profoundly impacted how the industry conducts commerce over the World Wide Web. He is most recognized as one of the founding fathers of WebSphere Software, whose innovations defined WebSphere as the industry-leading application server serving over eighty thousand customers.
Cuomo has filed for over a hundred US patents and has been cited over three thousand times. Jerry's most visible patent is the first use of the "Someone is typing…" indicator found in instant messaging applications.
At IBM, Cuomo has led projects in the areas of AI-Powered Automation, Blockchain, APIs, cloud computing, mobile computing, Internet of Things, web server performance and availability, web security, web caching, edge computing, service-oriented architecture, and REST. Cuomo is the co-author of the book Blockchain for Business, which illustrates how blockchain technology is re-imagining many of the world's most fundamental business interactions and opening the door to new styles of digital interactions that have yet to be imagined. Rama Akkiraju is an IBM fellow and CTO for AI Operations portfolio of products at IBM. Rama was named among the "Top 20 Women in AI Research" by Forbes magazine in May 2017, among the "Top 6 A-team for AI" by Fortune magazine in July 2018, and among the "Top 10 Pioneering Women in AI and Machine Learning" by Enterprise Management 360 in April 2019.
Rama served as the president for the International Society for Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) in 2018. She holds a master's degree in computer science and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. Rama has co-authored six book chapters and over a hundred technical papers. She has over thirty-five issued patents and more than twenty others pending. Allen Chan is an IBM distinguished engineer and CTO for Digital Business Automation. He is responsible for the IBM Cloud Pak® for business automation, including capabilities such as business process management and case management, decisions, content management, application designer, and robotic process automation.
Prior to that role, Allen had held various technical leadership roles in IBM BPM, such as the chief architect for Workflow (IBM BPM and Case Manager) and Blueworks Live. He is the holder of multiple patents in Canada, United States, and China, and he is the author of multiple articles around business processes, automation, and applied AI in automation. Harley Davis is a software industry executive with international start-up and senior-level management experience in software development, consulting, and sales. He is currently leading automation intelligence and the IBM France R&D Center at IBM, helping companies drive business agility in their operations with the world's leading platform helping organizations apply AI and other technologies to improve processes, decisions, and content management. Ethan Glasman is a technical content creator based in San Jose, California. He is currently the producer of The Art of Automation podcast as well as the technical communications lead for IBM Automation. His background is in applied mathematics and theater, and he enjoys combining technology and creativity to make engaging stories that are accessible to anyone. Eileen Lowry is the vice president of product management for business automation—content services portfolio in IBM Automation. Prior to leading product management for content services, she led the IBM Blockchain team that designed, built, and deployed blockchain applications on top of the IBM Blockchain Platform and Hyperledger technologies.
Eileen has a strong business acumen and an understanding of enterprise software, with experiences in product management, technical services, mergers and acquisitions strategy, business and corporate development, financial planning and analysis, pricing strategy, and software development. Rob Nicholson is a distinguished engineer with more than twenty-five years' experience leading innovation in software development teams, with a passion for technology and the development teams who create it. He has led IBM's Integration technology strategy as the CTO for APIs and Integration, responsible for world-renowned integration software, including MQ and Integration Bus, as well as new modern integration technology including Event Streams and API Connect.
Rob is an IBM "Master Inventor" with more than fifty issued patents broadly across microelectronics, software, firmware and business processes, and AI-infused integration technology. Salman Sheikh is the program director of product management at IBM Automation. In his eight years at IBM, he has served in various product management and design leadership roles defining product visions and execution strategies to deliver award-winning, market-leading enterprise solutions.
Most recently, Salman is responsible for bringing Watson Orchestrate to market as a breakthrough AI technology that puts automation into the hands of employees to automate day-to-day tasks.
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