Cognitive automation (CA) refers to leveraging artificial intelligence to train machines to perform judgment-based tasks. Whereas robotic process automation (RPA) supports completion of a high volume of rule-based tasks in a relatively short amount of time (relative to what a human could do), CA goes a step beyond by using artificial intelligence to approximate the human thought process. In other words, through more innovative uses of artificial intelligence, CA expands the universe of tasks machines can do to include those that would seem to require reason and judgment.
Cognitive automation technology enables us to obtain information from scattered sources, conduct deep analysis, and collaborate more easily and on a scale and at speeds that far exceed the capacity of humans,” explains Srini Murali, Exela’s President in a recent work article he authored for the technology information resource, ReadWrite[1], in which he provides a wide variety of CA use-cases that span multiple industries. Here are three that we think really drive the point home:
Healthcare
In the context of patient care, cognitive automation can help healthcare providers diagnose a patient who presents with a seemingly disparate set of complaints that don’t seem to add up to a clear-cut differential diagnosis. CA solutions can sift through those complaints and read through the patient’s case and health history in mere seconds and then compare all of that to a full range of diagnostic criteria to come up with an accurate diagnosis (or at least a recommendation for tests that should be administered to further get to the bottom of the medical mystery).
For a more in-depth exploration of how leveraging technology can significantly improve the current inefficient state of the U.S. healthcare system, you’ll want to download our Q4 edition of PluggedIN, Exela’s quarterly thought leadership publication: Tell Us Where it Hurts: How High-Tech Can Heal Healthcare.
Marketing
In the context of marketing, Murali describes how a law firm might use cognitive automation to monitor Federal, state, and local court systems, not merely for events (case filings, for example) but also for patterns (a large influx of a certain genre of case filing, for example) that can predict business opportunities such as class actions. “Given there are tens of thousands of daily updates to case files,” he notes, it would be “nearly impossible” to efficiently differentiate between “good” leads and “bad” without leveraging CA, which can then go even a step further by automatically notifying interested stakeholders.
Project Management
In the context of project management, cognitive automation tools can enable real-time collaboration across time zones and among employees all over the world. “By analyzing real-time data,” Murali adds, “machine learning systems will soon be able to alert managers to issues with ongoing projects before they occur.
