The development of software robots that mimic human behavior is made simple by robotic process automation (RPA). Like people, software robots are capable of reading screens, generating keystrokes, navigating systems, locating and extracting data, and a host of other predefined tasks. Software robots can work continually, unpaid and with no perks, in contrast to humans.
According to David Zhao, general director of IT consulting firm Coda Strategy, RPA offers an effective solution to automate monotonous processes, freeing humans to concentrate on more creative work. Therefore, the most vulnerable IT occupations are those that need straightforward, recurring operations.
According to Wayne Butterfield, a partner of ISG Automation, a division of the technology research and advising firm ISG, any repetitive IT task that follows a rigorous set of processes is vulnerable to RPA. He points out that most IT positions don't match this mold, which is good news. "Even jobs on the IT service desk still, in the main, require a conversation or perhaps the interpretation of a written ticket," explains Butterfield. This means that in addition to existing technology,
Enterprise Automation Inroads
Approximately 7,800 jobs might be replaced by AI, according to a May announcement from IBM, with many of those employees moving to RPA. Large IT service providers have been eliminating tens of thousands of manual, repetitive task-based jobs for years, according to Zhao.
