Why hyperautomation will never replace the human touch
Hyperautomation is the concept of automating everything in an organisation that can be automated. But how far is too far? Louise Romeo argues we’re creating problems with it by making things too complex.
I recently watched a show featuring Rob Lowe celebrating the best inventions of the 80s – from iconic machines like the Apple Macintosh, Sony Walkman and of course the Nintendo Gameboy. It made me wonder about how much simpler agency life was back in those days. And it made me think, have we made things so complex that we’ve been forced to place so much significance on business automation to solve problems of our own making?
It’s true that we’ve experienced technology evolve faster than ever in the 21st century. From quantum computing, to advances in robotics, voice-control and now even transcending reality with the metaverse. It has made us question this new era of technology, and if we’re now moving to ‘hyperautomation’, where organisations are increasingly looking to automate the end-to-end process through sophisticated AI, more efficient operations, and multiple-machine learning in an ecosystem of platforms and technologies. The issue with this is we have become so reliant on data, that we have forgotten the value our natural human instincts, intelligence and lived experiences.
In McKinsey’s A Future that Works: Automation, Employment and Productivity report, it identified five key factors influencing the pace of automation and extent of its adoption:
