US Companies Lead in Adopting Intelligent Automation to Improve Operations, Customer Service During Pandemic

  • ISG Provider Lens report says automation is thriving in fast-growing U.S. IT market as enterprises address remote work, disrupted processes and customer support challenges

US enterprises are quickly adopting intelligent automation as part of digital transformation projects that bring immediate benefits, according to a new research report published by Information Services Group, a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

“Leading companies in the U.S. have already implemented several important intelligent automation capabilities, and these will become the norm by 2025”

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens Intelligent Automation – Solutions and Services report for the U.S. finds new digital technologies such as automation have seen increasing adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic even as many broad-based digital transformation initiatives have been put on hold. This trend has helped make the U.S. a leading market for intelligent automation, which can help companies streamline operations, understand their internal processes and better serve customers, among other benefits.

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“Leading companies in the U.S. have already implemented several important intelligent automation capabilities, and these will become the norm by 2025,” said Chip Wagner, CEO, ISG Automation. “The U.S. leads the world in intelligent business process automation, as companies here look to scale automation as they accelerate digital transformation coming out of the pandemic. Even small and midsize businesses are now beginning to adopt automation capabilities.”

The Americas, and especially the U.S., led the global rebound in technology demand in the third quarter of 2021, logging significant gains over both the previous quarter and the third quarter of 2020, according to the ISG Index. Banking, financial services and insurance companies are at the forefront of the move toward intelligent business automation in the U.S., the report says, followed by healthcare and pharmaceutical, retail and telecom enterprises.

The pandemic has heightened the need for some automation technologies, including automated process discovery, which can help organizations understand and improve their real-world operations amid the rise of hybrid and remote work, ISG says.

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More U.S. companies have also implemented conversational AI solutions such as chatbots, virtual agents and voice assistants to strengthen customer support services during the pandemic. Public cloud is the most popular hosting option for conversational AI, though heavily regulated industries such as banking and healthcare favor on-premises deployment.

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Intelligent document processing (IDP) has also become essential for many U.S. organizations, as more employees work from home with less access to physical documents, according to ISG. The U.S. continues to be the largest market for this category of automation technologies, with adoption spreading from industries such as banking and healthcare to logistics, manufacturing and others. Enterprises are shifting from standard IDP solutions to pre-built offerings designed for specific industries, the report says.

The U.S. is also the leading market for artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) platforms and is likely to see rapid growth in this area over the next two to five years, ISG says. Companies are turning to AIOps due to the increasing scale and complexity of infrastructure, growing volumes of data and the need for cybersecurity compliance.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ Intelligent Automation – Solutions and Services report for the U.S. evaluates the capabilities of 81 providers across five quadrants: Intelligent Business Automation, Artificial Intelligence for IT Operations (AIOps), Conversational AI, Intelligent Document Processing and Process Discovery and Mining.

The report names Accenture, Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, IBM, Infosys, TCS, UiPath and Wipro as Leaders in two quadrants each. It names [24]7.ai, ABBYY, ABBYY Timeline, Amelia, AntWorks, Artificial Solutions, Automation Anywhere, Celonis, Cognigy, Creative Virtual, Genpact, Infrrd, Kofax, Kore.ai, LTI, Microsoft, Minit, Parascript, SAP Signavio, Software AG, WNS and WorkFusion as Leaders in one quadrant each.

In addition, Hexaware is named as a Rising Star—a company with a “promising portfolio” and “high future potential” by ISG’s definition—in two quadrants. Datamatics, FortressIQ and Pypestream are named as Rising Stars in one quadrant each.

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