In a new report, industry research firm HfS Research projects that the market for automation and artificial intelligence business operations spend will hit $9.7 billion next year. This represents a jump over its $7.7 billion estimate for 2017 and represents the next step up toward its forecast for the market to hit $15.4 billion in 2021.
In the analysis, Phil Fersht, founder of HfS Research, breaks down the industry into three distinct categories with specific definitions. “Despite all the ridiculous hype,” states HfS, robotic process automation (RPA) makes up the smallest segment and will continue to do so throughout the forecast period. According to the firm, the RPA software and services segment will pass $400 million in 2017 and grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 36% to hit $1.2 billion in 2021.
It is part of both its strength and weakness that RPA generally entails a “non-invasive application that requires minimum integration.” While some of the higher-value areas can offer more production, RPA will continue to grow as a means to automate highly transactional processes and smaller firms.
“RPA offers enough advantage to companies which operate with very few people or shortage of labor,” stated HfS in its report. “Both situations offer a welcome opportunity to save on cost as well as streamline the resource allocation by deploying automation.”
The next category considered is the “AI business operations spend,” which is already over the billion mark at $1.1 billion in 2017. This will more than double to $2.7 billion by 2021, according to HfS. While artificial intelligence is often the easiest to differentiate, the study defines it as the “simulation of human thought processes” that allow systems to make “autonomous decisions” and automatically adapt to “changing conditions and evolving business rules and dynamics.”
The third and largest segment is “intelligent process automation.” This area currently accounts for $6.2 billion of the overall $7.7 billion total for 2017. And by 2021, the company forecasts that it will reach $11.5 billion. The HfS study outlines the difference between this area and RPA by highlighting that the “internal training and development, pilot projects, and trial implementations is so much larger than simply software licenses and third-party professional services.”
Overall, Fersht highlights the usefulness of all of these, and other digital, approaches. But he closes with an acknowledgement that things will only be getting more cognitive from here. “As these solutions mature,” he writes, “we’ll see a real convergence of analytics, RPA, and cognitive solutions as intelligent data orchestration becomes the true lifeblood — and currency — for organizations.
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