Cognitive automation

Abstract

Facilitated by AI technology, the phenomenon of cognitive automation extends the scope of deterministic business process automation (BPA) through the probabilistic automation of knowledge and service work. By transforming work systems through cognitive automation, organizations are provided with vast strategic opportunities to gain business value. However, research lacks a unified conceptual lens on cognitive automation, which hinders scientific progress. Thus, based on a Systematic Literature Review, we describe the fundamentals of cognitive automation and provide an integrated conceptualization. We provide an overview of the major BPA approaches such as workflow management, robotic process automation, and Machine Learning-facilitated BPA while emphasizing their complementary relationships. Furthermore, we show how the phenomenon of cognitive automation can be instantiated by Machine Learning-facilitated BPA systems that operate along the spectrum of lightweight and heavyweight IT implementations in larger IS ecosystems. Based on this, we describe the relevance and opportunities of cognitive automation in Information Systems research.

When Harry, the human, met Sally, the software robot: Metaphorical sensemaking and sensegiving around an emergent digital technology

“…Much of the emerging body of literature on RPA and software robots either focuses on technical capabilities of RPA (Engel et al, 2022; Hofmann et al, 2020; Leno et al, 2021; Van de Weerd et al, 2021; Van der Aalst et al, 2018) or explores RPA from an organisational perspective (Hallikainen et al, 2018; Lacity and Willcocks, 2016a, 2021; Santos et al, 2019). Typically, studies that focus on a technological perspective provide conceptual foundations of RPA with an overview of its constituting concepts, underlying mechanisms, main characteristics and its potential integration with advanced automation technologies.…”

“…In addition to promoting a technical understanding of RPA, some studies (e.g. Engel et al, 2022;Van de Weerd et al, 2021) propose an integration of RPA with artificial intelligence (AI) as a way to expand automation efforts to more complex and less well-defined work tasks.…”

Artificial intelligence and machine learning

“…The frontend as the interface to the environment may take various forms; it may be designed as a very abstract, machine-readable web interface (Kühl et al, 2020), a humanreadable application (Engel et al, 2022;Hirt et al, 2019), or even a humanoid template with elaborated expression capabilities (Guizzo, 2014). For the frontend to interact with the environment, two technical components are required: sensors and actuators.…”

Electronic Markets on platform dualities

“…Among the major forms of cognitive automation are workflow management, robotic process automation, and machinelearning-facilitated business process automation. They offer important implications for digital ecosystems as well as for interorganizational processes (Engel et al 2022). • Ana Alina Tudoran presents how recommendations in e-commerce systems may be developed from user behavior by applying unsupervised machine learning algorithms.…”