INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION BRINGS BENEFITS FOR PETROLEUM REFINING, HEALTHCARE, FINANCE AND MORE

brought together representatives from many varied industries to discuss practical applications for artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), cognitive computing and more. Participating organizations included McDonald’s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Pepsico, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, General Motors and many more. Michael Rogers, a contributor to MSNBC and the New York Times, provided the event’s keynote address. He emphasized that it is imperative for organizations at any point in their digital journey to take stock of automation’s best use cases before assuming that all tasks can be automated. “A crucial task is to figure out what belongs in the virtual world and what still belongs in the real world and find ways to connect them,” said Rogers. Making these connections, he explained, will require many employees with the proper skillsets and, in many cases, the use of advanced “smart” objects, such as energy-harvesting sensors. He also advised automation decision-makers to evaluate which technologies may be overhyped in their respective industry sectors, and which technologies actually provide intelligent automation, contrasting the overall benefits provided by largely hyped autonomous vehicles with the safety-enhancing capabilities of smart sensors for roads and bridges. In a particularly fascinating use case for safety-improving smart devices, presenters from Walmart cited the implementation of chemical sensors to quickly determine product quality (for instance, spoiled food in warehouses and stores) as one of their in-development automation projects.