The Future of Automation in the Age of AI – From Hyperautomation to BOAT

At the Gartner Application Innovation and Business Solutions (AIBS) Summit 2024, Las Vegas, one of this year's main themes is the future of enterprise applications which consists of four facets according to Gartner:

1) Composable architecture;

2) Autonomous orchestration;

3) Embedded intelligence (e.g. AI); and

4) Adaptive experience

With the future of enterprise applications in mind, Saikat Ray, VP Analyst Gartner, summarized what the future of enterprise application means for automation in his session "Introducing BOAT: Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies".

Below is a summary of the main points:

‍1) The current state:

Automation technologies like RPA, BPA, LCNC, iPaaS all have their place in the automation space delivering values for different use cases. This was the original thesis of the Hyperautomation.

• a) RPA solved the problem of the past
• b) iPaaS offered API-first automation
• c) BPA platform enabled sophisticated process orchestration
• d) Low-code Application Platforms (LCAP) offered BPA-like capability with more agility

2) The future state:

According to Gartner: “A BOAT is a class of software technology that enables enterprises to automate and orchestrate end-to-end business processes while connecting multiple enterprise systems of records via any applicable integration method. ”In other words, instead of comparing technologies, e.g. RPA vs. iPaaS vs. BPA vs. LCNC, the future of automation should be business-focused and outcome-driven.

• a) Leveraging a composable architecture to incorporate any existing and emerging automation technologies to create adaptive business orchestrations spanning systems, tasks, and data, regardless of the underlying technologies.
• b) AI will be an implicit but integral part of the future of automation to enable adaptive experience, autonomous orchestrations, and many more.

Together, we can shape the future of automation in the age of AI.