The Future of Automation: 9 Predictions to Watch for in 2022

As a mix of robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), automation takes care of the mundane tasks we’d rather not spend time on, the work we don’t want to be messed with by human error, the customer interactions that require immediate responses—and so much more.

Although automation has been developing at lightning speed over the past few years, it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down. So what is the future of automation? We will cover this and more in this article.

1. Automating high-value actions

Currently, the low-hanging fruit for automation is boring repetitive work. Automating front office functions may be more challenging, more difficult, but it is becoming more common.

More organizations will soon be using quality automation technology customer experience (CX).

According to the HubSpot Blog Market Trends Report 2022approximately 17% of marketers are currently integrating automation or artificial intelligence as part of their marketing strategy.

Another HubSpot Blog survey on media and content planning found that more than a quarter of marketers surveyed say they plan to use automation in their media planning strategy.

With data to show consumers prioritize CX more and expects more personalization across brand interactions, this forces brands to consider automation for larger, more impactful sectors of their business.

2. Prioritizing marketing, sales and coordinating success

Automation cannot be successful when operating in a silo.

That’s why it’s critical that teams—especially marketing, sales, and success teams—are aligned because they have a huge impact on the customer journey.

It’s no longer enough to automate your marketing emails. What about handover of a contact when the contact moves down the funnel? Or a follow-up when a prospect completes a high-intent action?

Because marketing teams are only one part of the journey, it’s essential that automation workflows consider user behavior beyond marketing.

3. Automation as a key part of CRMs

According to a 2021 LinkedIn report, 75% of sales professionals use technology – usually CRM – to close more deals.

However, today’s salespeople only spend a lot of time on administration and data entry instead of selling.

As sales and marketing teams realize the potential of automation to solve repetitive tasks, more top CRM tools develop powerful automation features.

These will enable companies to automate routine tasks to speed up sales cycles, send personalized marketing messages and proactively resolve customer service cases without lifting a finger.

4. Automation for greater personalization

Nearly half of consumers say they are likely to become repeat customers after a personalized shopping experience with a retail brand, according to Twilio’s 2022 State of Personalization Report.

After the pandemic, the need for personalization grew and brands must respond or risk being left behind.

From the audience segmentation and drip campaigns to product recommendations and cart abandonment notifications, personalization cannot work at scale without automation.

This new shift towards personalization means that automation will become a higher priority for brands.

5. Automation of the entire range of company applications

Businesses have more tools at their fingertips than ever before.

In the future of automation, more companies will have the role of business systems manager overseeing their vast array of tools—a position that will have great capacity for influence and change.

More than ever, the SaaS tools we choose will help our businesses become more productive, profitable and impactful.

For the best results will be companies connect your tools enable automated two-way data synchronization and greater accuracy.

6. Business chatbots as full-time agents

According to Vonage’s 2021 Customer Engagement Report, one in five consumers use live chat or daily in-app chat.

While today’s businesses mostly use live chat to enable real-time conversations between consumers and company representatives, more and more companies are setting up chatbots.

With bots, businesses can provide answers to frequently asked questions and even resolve issues without the involvement of a team member. The best chatbots are increasingly serving as full-time customer support agents.

The key to bot success is intelligence, which still has its limitations but is rapidly improving.

In the future of automation, robots will become more useful, more intelligent, and may soon include voice functionality.

7. AI for automated decision making

Decision making is tiring.

You need the right data at your fingertips to look beyond your own biases and gain consensus from other stakeholders. Artificial intelligence will increasingly provide a solution to this by providing high-quality data that can help make the best decisions.

V The 2021 State of B2B Marketing Automation Report58% of B2B professionals say the tactic is the no. 1 that maximizes the success of their marketing automation tool quality data.

While some decisions can be immediately acted upon by automation, many will – and must – go back to humans for emotional and empathic consideration.

8. Automation of data collection and reporting

Data management automation is essential to ensure data quality and integrity.

However, reporting does not necessarily involve confusing Excel exports and hours spent processing data.

Author: unifying all your customer data with an iPaaS solutionyour tools can provide more accurate reporting with the information at hand.

9. RPA helps companies become more productive

RPA, also called “robotics” or “robots”, is defined as rule-based process automation using software that uses a user interface that can run in any software, including web applications, ERP systems and large computers. systems.

This can include opening emails and attachments, moving files and folders, or filling out forms.

In the future, RPA will likely become a more standard part of our workflows, either through standalone tools, features of tools we already use, or integrated applications.

Is automation changing work as we know it?

The short answer is yesbut for the better.

This is according to a 2021 PWC survey 61% of people around the world, they believe that automation threatens people’s jobs. However, the truth is that automation is not eliminating job opportunities, it is redefining roles.

The role of automation is to take care of tasks that machines can do better than us, remove human error and enable scalability.

One common misconception about automation is that it’s a set-it-and-forget-it approach. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Although it frees up time, it is spent feeding and optimizing for better results. So automation doesn’t mean losing the human side, it means empowering workers to focus on more efficient work.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in October 2021 and has been updated for completeness.