Acquisition signals increasing role of AI in outsourcing

With its announcement last week that it will purchase enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) and automation vendor Rage Frameworks, Genpact became the first IT and business process service provider to acquire an AI platform. The addition of Rage Frameworks, which has been applying machine learning and language processing to build intelligent automation platforms for financial services, capital markets and supply chains, "will take Genpact deeper into integrating semi and unstructured data and AI, where we see the true marriage of business processes with clever technology and self-developing algorithms," says Phil Fersht, CEO of outsourcing analyst and consulting firm HfS Research. On the surface, another acquisition of a niche automation vendor by an IT service provider might seem unremarkable. But industry watchers say this may be the tipping point where focus will shift from back-office automation to integrating and intelligently automating front- and middle-office functions. "It represents an evolution of the back-office oriented automation acquisitions that many outsourcing providers have made over the past several years," says David Borowski, director with outsourcing consultancy Pace Harmon.