Most researchers agree approximately 80% of any organization's data is hidden in multiple sources, such as emails, PDF application forms, and paper documents. This data often goes unused because of the time and resources required to get meaningful information from it. Even then, the data often needs to be manually rekeyed into multiple locations. Combined with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), IQ Bot enables banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) companies to take advantage of intelligent document processing (IDP) to extract valuable data and streamline operations. IQ Bot blends multiple artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP), to glean relevant information from any type of document, add structure to the data, and deliver the results to multiple applications.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which allows for the automation of the tasks of workers, has been one of the hottest categories in tech. The reason is actually simple: the ROI (Return on Investment) has generally been fairly high. Yet there are some nagging issues. And perhaps the biggest is the scaling of the technology. But AI (Artificial Intelligence) is likely to help out.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), which allows for the automation of the tasks of workers, has been one of the hottest categories in tech. The reason is actually simple: the ROI (Return on Investment) has generally been fairly high. Yet there are some nagging issues. And perhaps the biggest is the scaling of the technology. But AI (Artificial Intelligence) is likely to help out.

Automation Anywhere has announced advances to its IQ Bot, designed to accelerate intelligent automation to aid in intelligent document processing. IQ Bot is the world's only web-based, cloud-native RPA-integrated Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution. The new version, delivered both via the cloud and on premises, expands AI-driven document processing capabilities to users. With a large number of pre-packaged use cases available out of the box, users can now automate business processes that involve documents such as invoices, purchase orders, loan applications, insurance claims and many others across multiple industries. The new release also expands the user interface to support 10 languages and enables extraction from identification documents such as passports and industry standard documents for insurance, health claims and others.

As evidence, nearly half (46%) of enterprises today have already deployed intelligent automation, according to an IDG study. For the first time, RPA and AI can reside together in one web-based platform. RPA developers finally can collaborate closely with data scientists, and vice versa. And the results -- truly intelligent automation -- promise to be spectacular. The Automation Anywhere Enterprise platform has always included IQ Bot, our cognitive tool that can process unstructured and semi-structured data to power intelligent automation of end-to-end processes.

That starts with recruitment and onboarding. "Having a face-to-face meeting with a human seems to be an incredibly powerful way to communicate," Samer Al Moubayed, co-founder and CEO of Furhat Robotics, told Engadget. However, he points out that even the most experienced and well-trained recruiters occasionally succumb to subconscious biases while conducting interviews -- be they based on age, gender, race or even just a candidate's responses to pre-interview chit-chat. And that's where Furhat's social robot comes in. The 16-inch tall, nearly 8-pound robot is designed to sit at eye level and provide a physical presence with which to interact, as opposed to an onscreen chatbot or virtual phone assistant.

Recently IT Brief had the opportunity to get in touch with Adrian Jones, Automation Anywhere APJ EVP, to discuss AI and its impact on the modern workforce. Can you tell me a bit more about Automation Anywhere? Automation Anywhere is a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software and AI technology for enterprises looking to deploy intelligent digital workforces. Our technology uses software bots that work alongside the human workforce to take on repetitive, mundane work, allowing people to do more meaningful work. Beyond automating tasks, Automation Anywhere's platform also helps improve them on the back-end by enhancing efficiency, minimising error and reducing operational costs, while helping enterprises manage and scale business processes faster.

Automation Anywhere has opened its Bot Store to machine learning and AI developers, allowing them to offer up their bots for developing new applications and services. The company has added its cognitive IQ Bot tech into the mix, to help turn unstructured data into structured data for developing business processes such as financial data. Integrating automation into invoicing, payments and purchase ordering will enable verticals struggling with innovation to concentrate on being art eh forefront of their industry rather than dealing with reams of paperwork. Bot Store has grown rapidly as a resource for developers to share their plug'n' play, off the shelf robots. In fact, Automation Anywhere says the marketplace has grown 100% just two months after launching.

Automation Anywhere launched the latest release of its IQ Bot cognitive automation solution with additional native AI capabilities and more third-party AI platform integrations than ever before to enable automation of complex business processes. Designed to assist and learn from business users, IQ Bot is the only cognitive bot that puts the power of advanced AI technologies in the hands of business users. The native AI capabilities in IQ Bot detect critical information hidden in unstructured data in ways that can be processed by other bots and applications to dramatically improve straight-through processing (STP). By combining cognitive abilities with practical, rule-based RPA capabilities, organizations can quickly scale and up-level their Intelligent Digital Workforces to fully automate processes end-to-end and run them independently, with minimal human intervention. "Automation Anywhere was one of the first RPA vendors to spot the need for automating business processes that handled unstructured data, for example, documents and emails. Its solution, IQ Bot, complements its RPA and helps organizations extend the scope of automation," said Sarah Burnett, research VP at Everest Group.