Ask tech analysts for a digital transformation definition and many will have a quick one at the ready. In the trenches of businesses struggling to automate processes with AI, analytics and rules-based engines, there's less spoken of digital transformation and more about bottom-line results -- one project at a time. Without passing judgment on the accuracy of IDC's, Forrester Research's and Gartner's digital transformation definitions (see "Leading analyst firms describe digital transformation"), it's easy to agree they're all convincingly vague. In the content management sphere, the meaning of the term digital transformation can lean toward making content from all corners of the enterprise accessible to all users, subdivided to just the snippet of text and graphics that an employee or customer needs at the time -- and nothing more -- dynamically rendered to the device in use. But whatever the true meaning of digital transformation, customers and vendors at the PegaWorld 2018 user conference in Las Vegas had difficultly agreeing on, or even expressing, how to define this shopworn tech expression in the real world, where actual CFOs approve real budget spending on technology that affects everyday workflow.

This past week more than 5,000 people made their way to Las Vegas to learn that the biggest bet they need to place has nothing to do with casino games. It's a bet that will help business with their processes, workflows and the customer experience (CX). PegaWorld is the annual Pegasystems user conference where people representing companies from all over the world learn about the latest and greatest updates to the Pega applications that are helping to run their businesses, and I was honored to be invited to not just attend, but speak at the event. By the way, the robots I mentioned aren't the machines you might see on a manufacturing assembly line or something that looks like R2D2 from Star Wars that wheels around and takes care of simple physical tasks. These robots, otherwise known as robotic process automation (RPA), are the software applications that automatically take care of routine tasks you perform on your computer.

Pegasystems has announced the launch of Pega Infinity, a digital transformation software suite. Infinity is the first platform to connect front end customer experiences to back end process automation, and represents Pega's largest ever product launch, according to the company. The announcement was made overnight at Pegasystems annual user conference, Pegaworld, in Las Vegas. The new suite enhances Pega's customer engagement applications and digital process automation platform. According to Pega, the new suite will allow organisations to accelerate their transformation projects to "continuously exceed their customers' expectations".