5 Benefits of AI and Machine Learning for Process Automation/Document Management

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Give Process Automation a Boost.

These days process automation/document management is getting an even bigger boost with the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) functionality. That’s right, as if process management/document management wasn’t already smart enough, it now has the ability to be an even greater asset to corporations by becoming a virtual team member of its own and taking over a wider variety of tasks and processes so your staff can focus on the most pertinent projects.

If your organization has already embraced robotic process automation (RPA), then you already realize the efficiencies of automated processes. RPA is the use of software, often utilizing AI and ML functionality, to automate tedious, high-volume, repetitive tasks that previously required manual, human intervention. In short, the main objective of RPA is to automate tasks that are taking up your employees’ time and resources.

But let’s take it one step further.

When you choose a process automation/document management solution that has the smart, learning-enabled capabilities of AI and ML functionality, you open up your organization to the opportunity to not only be more efficient, but to the chance for enhanced cash management, ROI and reallocation of resources.

Let’s dive into the benefits a little more:

1. More accurate document reading, classification and processing: No matter how invoice data is coming into your organization, process automation/document management with AI has you covered. Harnessing AI and ML kicks optical character recognition (OCR) up a notch. AI doesn’t just recognize specific characters and words in your document, it “reads” them, understands what the information means and then performs specific actions based on that information, learning as it goes to make you and your processes even more efficient.
2. It has the ability to learn: Unlike traditional process automation/document management and automated workflow, AI does not just put all documents through the same repetitive process. AI has the ability to utilize ML to learn from the exceptions and the documents that stray from the norm so that in the future it will learn what to do with those documents that do not conform to the standardized process. This means fewer exceptions for you to manage. Instead, your process automation/document management system paired with AI will know what needs to happen with those oddities and you only need to deal with the most pertinent exceptions.
3. You no longer need to ignore that unstructured data: Many traditional document management systems do not have the capabilities to deal with unstructured data because of its lack of, well, structure. However, AI and ML’s advanced technology can collect and analyze more data than traditional document management can, giving you greater data insight into areas of your business that you didn’t even know you needed!
4. It automates even more manual processes: On their own, document management systems can eliminate a substantial number of manual tasks. However, document management systems are limited in the types of processes that they can automate, even with robotic process automation (RPA). The tasks must be repetitive and predictable, and staff needs to be prepared to get notifications to handle any exceptions that are out of the norm for that process. However, with the addition of AI and ML, more comprehensive, complex processes are able to be automated because the AI and ML functionality has the ability to cognize, learn and adjust based on feedback. This opens the door for even more processes to be automated so you can further reallocate the tasks and projects that your staff is responsible for.
5. It drives business intelligence: Your document management system paired with AI and ML doesn’t just pull information and send it to a queue. It has the ability to help employees make more informed business decisions by taking the information that it recognizes assessing it so that it can do something strategic with it. This may mean pulling out key invoice data and notifying AP staff when a payment is overdue, or even recognizing specific keywords in resumes and filtering those for HR staff to streamline business processes and help employees be more strategic in their decision-making.

The future of document management is here, and it’s smarter and more agile than ever before. Today’s document management systems, when integrated with AI and ML, are an extension of the capable team that you already have and are continuing to advance and transform business processes, decision-making and automation technology as we know it.