3 Automation Trends in 2024

25 March 2024

Automation is simply unmissable in the modern business world. With 48% of businesses utilising automation as part of their processes, it’s become essential to know the technology’s ins and outs, and how it can benefit your organisation.

As the year 2024 continues, it’s worth noting that automation continues to be a rapidly evolving technology with new and emerging trends. Moreover, organisations are increasingly leveraging automation’s capabilities and usage like never before. Therefore, it’s crucial to stay informed about these latest trends and developments. By doing so, you’ll be able to stay ahead of the curve and ensure that you start your automation journey on the right foot, hitting the ground running.

This blog will review the top three automation trends you must be aware of in 2024. These trends are all significant and will help you ensure you can get the most out of automation in your organisation.

Trend 1: Democratisation of Automation

In the realm of technology, democratisation refers to making a specific technology more accessible to a broader range of people. This can be achieved through general access or by creating more user-friendly interfaces that enable widespread use. Automation’s democratisation has made it increasingly popular. As such, there is no reason why your organisation should not consider it if it is not already doing so. Microsoft’s Power Automate program provides access to tools to help you leverage automation to take your organisation to the next level.

Here are some of the ways that the democratisation of automation is helping the industry as a whole:

Increased accessibility: Automation technology becoming more accessible to a broader audience is suitable for many reasons, mainly due to the increased eyes on automation. As automation becomes the industry standard, more benefits will follow.
Components: Automation is a crucial focus for many companies and organisations, meaning there is a greater need for new plug-and-play components to help organisations get the most out of automation. These components are easy to install and exist to counteract the growing skills shortage.
Narrowing the skill gap: The skills shortage has meant that organisations have struggled to implement new technologies as they’ve emerged, without the knowledge, who will implement them? Automation’s democratisation solves that, making it more accessible to those who are less skilled.

With these, it’s clear that the democratisation of AI will only yield increased benefits as time goes on. This means that organisations can fully take advantage of the power of automation without having to worry about its accessibility.

Trend 2: Integration of AI and Automation

If any technology took over the world in 2023, it was artificial intelligence. The rise of AI has been unprecedented, and the technology only seems to be getting stronger as time goes on. For businesses, this is incredible. AI has genuinely transformed the workplace in so many ways.

For automation specifically, the power of combining the pure efficiency of automation with the power of AI has meant that it’s easier than ever to unlock new possibilities to take your workplace to the next level. And, with organisations like Microsoft looking to embrace AI in every way possible, the combination of automation and AI isn’t an idea far in the future. Power Automate already has AI integrations, and they’re only growing.

Here are some of the ways that AI is transforming automation:

Generative AI: Generative AI is incredibly popular, but also transforms how automation works within your organisation. Unlike traditional automation, known as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), generative AI lets users find new ways to tackle challenges that would otherwise be difficult to solve.
Scaling: AI enables you to scale your automation and complete more processes, making your automation setup incredibly efficient and replicable. This enables you to eliminate repetitive tasks throughout your organisation efficiently.
Ease of use: The ease of use of AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot, within Power Automate, means that it’s never been easier to use AI to get the most out of automation within your organisation.

Trend 3: Ethical Automation

As society increasingly adopts new technologies, it becomes crucial to develop and use them ethically and responsibly, while considering socioeconomic and environmental factors. This requires ensuring that automation practices do not exploit or undermine core principles of responsibility.

There are a few different things to consider here:

Fairness: To ensure fairness, your organisation should avoid bias in decision-making and eliminate any discrimination used in its decision-making process or automated processes
Transparency: It’s important to ensure transparency by keeping everyone in the loop about decision-making processes.
Privacy means looking after people’s data within and outside your organisation.
Accountability: Ensuring clear definition of responsibilities and assigning accountability within your organisation, will facilitate easy identification of the person or department responsible in case of any mishap.
Social accountability: Ensure that your organisation considers the broader social impact of automation, including job displacement and economic implications.

How To Get Started

Automation is a critical technology in the modern world. Keeping up with the latest industry trends on automation will ensure you’re always in the loop about how to take your organisation to the next level.

If you want to start with automation but don’t know where to start, then contact us today. Our experts are here to help and will ensure your support throughout the process.

Get in touch with us now and see how we can help.

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