HELSINKI, August 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today The Qt Company introduced the Qt for Automation offering, a new set of libraries and development tools for the building, services and industrial automation sectors. Built on Qt for Device Creation and Qt for Application Development, Qt for Automation is designed to enhance the performance and capabilities of edge devices for the Internet of Things (IoT). With Qt for Automation's modular, scalable and secure libraries and interoperability capabilities, organizations in the automation industry can reduce operating costs and improve the efficiency of business processes. Qt's technology is currently in use by millions of developers across the world and eight of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies.

With Gartner, Inc. forecasting earlier this year that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017 and 5.5 million new devices being connected every day, the IoT is one of the most opportunity-rich areas across today's global technology landscape. Furthermore, McKinsey & Company found that the potential value that could be unlocked with IoT applications in factory settings which represent a significant portion of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) could be as much as $3.7 trillion in 2025, which is approximately one-third of all potential economic value of the IoT estimated by McKinsey. Consequently, organizations in the automation industry are increasingly looking for ways to pursue the market opportunities created by both the IoT and the IIoT.

The modern architecture and extensibility of the modular, scalable and secure tools and QtKNX libraries within Qt for Automation guarantees rapid innovation and future warranties, independent of any changes to the hardware or operating systems. By leveraging these features and the device interoperability capabilities of Qt for Automation, organizations in the industrial and home automation sectors are able to significantly reduce operating costs and streamline mission-critical business processes.

"With the rise of IoT, we realized thatthe amount ofsensors and I/O we collected in our control systems was increasing exponentially, and we needed to aggregate the data and present it in a better way to becomemore efficient," said Rune Volden, R&D Manager, Ulstein Power & Control. "Qt provides a very good tool for programming control systems as well as graphical user interfaces, which saved us a significant amount of development time."

Qt for Automation extends Qt's comprehensive portfolio of application development and device creation tools. The primary features of Qt for Automation include:

"Qt has been focused on the automation sector since our inception two decades ago, and our presence in the industry has expanded alongside the exponential growth of the global IoT market," said Lars Knoll, CTO, The Qt Company. "With the new Qt for Automation offering, we are bringing our automation capabilities together in an integrated and comprehensive set of software development tools and libraries that have been designed for edge devices in industrial and home automation. This enables our automation customers to quickly and easily gain tangible business benefits, including reduced costs and improved efficiencies across their entire organization, and further extends our leadership position in the automation industry."

Qt will share additional details about Qt for Automation during a webinar taking place at 4:00 p.m. CEST on Thursday, September 7th. You can register for the webinar here.

Additionally, to learn more about Qt for Automation, please read our blog post detailing the new offering.

Furthermore, you can learn more about The Qt Company and Qt for Automation at this year's Qt World Summit, the largest annual event dedicated to Qt developers, business leaders and product managers. The event will take place in Berlin, Germany from October 10-12 and will feature thought-provoking keynotes and demos, insightful breakouts, and industry highlights. For more information on the Qt World Summit 2017, please visit: http://www.qtworldsummit.com/

About The Qt Company

The Qt Company develops and delivers the Qt development framework under commercial and open source licenses. We enable a single software code across all operating systems, platforms and screen types, from desktops and embedded systems to wearables and mobile devices. Qt is used by approximately one million developers worldwide and is the leading independent technology behind millions of devices and applications. Qt is the platform of choice for in-vehicle systems, medical devices, industrial automation devices, and other business critical application manufacturers, and is used by leading global players in more than 70 industries. The Qt Company is owned by the Qt Group, which operates in China, Finland, Germany, Japan, Korea, Norway, Russia and USA with more than 200 employees worldwide. The Qt Group is headquartered in Espoo, Finland and is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Stock Exchange. The company's net sales in year 2016 totaled 32,4 MEUR. To learn more visit http://qt.io

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Qt Introduces Qt for Automation to Help Organizations Reduce Operating Costs and Improve Business Process Efficiency - Markets Insider

I recently introduced my kids to the original Star Wars trilogy. As we watched together, there was one thing that bothered me over and over. That thing was a gangly, gold-plated klutz of a droid called C-3PO.

Threepio is kind of a terrible robot. The problem is his heavy, accident-prone body really only exists to carry his software around. He easily could have been a handheld device that you take out of your pocket when you need to negotiate with some Jawas and put away when you want to travel through space without the snide commentary.

That said, the relationship between C-3PO and his human partners provides a few hints about knowledge work automation. Hes always on in the background to enable communication and provide data-based insights, and he even simulates variable outcomes. Yet despite possessing more logic than the humans around him, he is there to serve as an adviser. He relies on their creativity and emotional intelligence to solve problems.

Teams and CIOs can learn a lot from this relationship as automation in the enterprise becomes more normalized. In an ideal system, automation doesnt replace human thought but augments it by providing better information and by offloading repetitive tasks to software. The goal is to supplement the human mind to bring out the best quality of work from your most talented employees.

Since we dont have Threepio units for the enterprise (at least, not yet), were seeing more subtle forms of automation in white-collar work, especially in routine cognitive tasks. Theres a great 2014 post on Scott McLeods education blog Dangerously Irrelevant that describes the decreasing value of routine cognitive work, and in it you can see that software has been reducing routine tasks as far back the 1970s. Now, AI and machine learning are expanding the variability of semi-routine tasks that computers are able to perform, allowing bots to handle more complex tasks in fields like customer service, logistics coordination, payment processing, and many, many more.

For workers, bringing value in an automation-heavy world depends on their ability to execute non-routine cognitive work. This is work that requires problem-solving skills, creativity, empathy, and persuasion. Writing, for example, is a skill computers have yet to master (despite some hilarious attempts).

For those knowledge workers in cognitive fields, theyll still see automation creeping into their workflows in ways that will help eliminate some of the least pleasant parts of their jobs. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 60 percent of occupations could see 30 percent of their tasks automated with technologies available today. That means even if youre a creative professional say, a designer youve probably already used automation to do repeatable work, like batch file renames or applying filters to a collection of images. Simple automations like these free workers from mundane tasks and give them hours back every week to focus on higher-value portions of their job.

The next wave of automation for knowledge workers is workflow automation, which at a high level means automated systems can help you move repeatable work through a variable workflow, while keeping your team informed about handoffs and status changes. This is invaluable because in collaborative work, the biggest roadblocks occur when two or more people are working on the same task, and one doesnt realize the others are awaiting their contributions. This has a huge impact on productivity.

This is why theres so much value that can be gained from automating communications about tasks and projects as they move through a pipeline. By automating the delivery of updates and other information between team members, you can reduce the amount of emails and meetings needed in an organization, while ensuring receipt of important data. If some of those updates are about sales opportunities, automation can help a business increase revenue. And, as is the case with the previous example of the designer, youve given people back time to focus on more valuable work.

The biggest myth about automation is that its coming for your job, and that business leaders are longing to replace humans with cheaper machine labor. In an informal poll we recently conducted with about 250 attendees of a webinar on automation, reducing cost was dead last among reasons businesses are investing in it. The top two responses were consistent approach and work quality, which suggests leaders are thinking more about how automation can help them scale their operations rather than downsize them.

Still, for millions of workers, a day of reckoning may come where they need to uplevel their skills away from the routine. For these individuals, focusing on strategy, creativity, and people skills will help strengthen their careers and position them to bring lasting value, even after many of their daily tasks have been augmented by machines. In McLeods post, he discusses how the education system must also adapt to emphasize non-routine thought so that future generations are equipped with relevant skills in a world where machines execute routine work, and I agree.

Automation is a massive shift in work, and for many workers, it will be a shift they slowly notice alleviating some of the most repeatable parts of their job. And while were still far from the droids of Star Wars, as our work is increasingly augmented by machine intelligence, well be able to unlock more value than we ever thought possible.

Andrew Filev is the CEO of Wrike, thework management platform.

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Star Wars and C-3PO perpetuated myths about workplace automation - VentureBeat

NEW YORK, Aug. 14, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Automated Liquid Handling, Microplate Readers, Software & Informatics, Automated Storage & Retrieval Systems and Others

Report Details The global lab automation market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.0% in the first half of the forecast period and CAGR of 5.7% in the second half of the forecast period. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.6% from 2017 to 2027. The market is estimated at $3,984 million in 2016 and $8,320 million in 2027.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04890883/Global-Lab-Automation-Market-Forecast.html

How this report will benefit you - Read on to discover how you can exploit the future business opportunities emerging in this sector. - In this brand new 198-page report you will receive 92 tables and 97 figures all unavailable elsewhere. - The 198-page report provides clear detailed insight into the global lab automation market. Discover the key drivers and challenges affecting the market. - By ordering and reading our brand new report today you stay better informed and ready to act.

Report Scope Global Lab Automation Market forecasts from 2017-2027

Revenue forecasts of global lab automation market, segmented by product type: - Automated Liquid Handling - Microplate Readers - Software & Informatics - Automate Storage & Retrievals - Others

Revenue forecasts of global lab automation market, segmented by automation type: - Modular Automation - Total Lab Automation

Revenue forecasts of global lab automation market, segmented by application: - Drug Discovery - Clinical Diagnostics - Genomics Solutions - Proteomic Solutions - Others

Revenue forecasts of Automated Liquid Handling submarket, segmented by product type: - Automated Integrated Workstations - Reagent Dispensers - Microplate Washers - Others This section also discusses the leading products as well as SWOT analysis of this submarket.

Revenue forecasts of Microplate Readers submarket, segmented by product type: - Multi-mode - Single-mode This section also discusses the leading products as well as SWOT analysis of this submarket.

Revenue forecasts of Software & Informatics submarket, segmented by product type: - Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) - Electronic Laboratory Notebook - Scientific Data Management Systems - Others This section also discusses the leading products as well as SWOT analysis of this submarket.

Lab Automation Leading Regional Market forecasts from 2017-2027 covering North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa: - US - Canada - UK - Germany - France - Spain - Italy - Rest of Europe - China - Japan - India - Australia - Rest of Asia-Pacific - Brazil - Mexico - Rest of Latin America - Saudi Arabia - South Africa - Rest of Middle East and Africa

Assessment of selected leading companies that hold major market shares in the lab automation market.

Visiongain's study is intended for anyone requiring commercial analyses for the Lab Automation Market. You find data, trends and predictions.

Buy our report today Global Lab Automation Market Forecast 2017-2027: Automated Liquid Handling, Microplate Readers, Software & Informatics, Automated Storage & Retrieval Systems and Others.

visiongain is a trading partner with the US Federal Government Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04890883/Global-Lab-Automation-Market-Forecast.html

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Global Lab Automation Market Forecast 2017-2027 - Markets Insider

Aug 14, 2017

Automic Software, a provider of business automation software and subsidiary of CA Technologies, announced a new automation use case to help enterprises empower digital transformation initiatives across their SAP environments.

Many organizations find it difficult and time-consuming to provide appropriately anonymized copies of SAP data for use by development, testing or QA teams. This can cause delays in agile development processes, which ultimately, impact business success. Automic Continuous Delivery for SAP enables organizations depending upon SAP for mission-critical operations to automatically manage test data and test automation.

Today, every business is a digital business, said Chris Boorman, CMO of Automic. As organizations implement digital transformation strategies, they need to align the pace of new technology with traditional ERPs and core business applications. Automic Continuous Delivery for SAP empowers organizations to deploy SAP copies for development and testing purposes at the click of a button, enabling rapid and agile development of digital transformation initiatives.

Automic Continuous Delivery for SAP is designed to reduce the cost for storage and provisioning of test data, as well as accelerate testing and QA cycles with self-service provisioning and test case execution.

To learn more, visithere.

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Automic Announces SAP Environment Automation - Database Trends and Applications

Westpac CIO Dave Curran says workers face career carnage from tech disruption unless they are enabled to re-skill on the job.

Westpac's most senior technology executive has warned workers aged over 35 risk being left in the blocks by the wave of automation and new technologies, unless management philosophy in large organisations adjusts to adapt to the changing world.

The bank's chief information officer, Dave Curran, will outline his thoughts on the tech-led changes to Australia's workforce and corporate structure in an address to a Trans-Tasman Business Circle lunch in Sydney on Tuesday, and he will warn that it is not feasible to continue on with the same business structures in place.

In a copy of his speech, seen by The Australian Financial Review, Mr Curran says most businesses are working under very outdated leadership models, which leave workers unable to learn and change their expertise in a way that will be useful once technology has overrun their existing roles.

"One of the great conundrums of today is that we've got 21st-century technology smashing into 20th-century business process and, to make it worse, those processes are still working under 19th-century governance," Mr Curran says.

"We're living in a digital revolution. How we work is changing. It's being driven by social, mobile, analytic and cloud-based technology. We've been talking about robotics and AI for quite some time, and they have arrived."

Mr Curran likens the inaction of many organisations to the changes happening around them to an old analogy about boiling frogs. The wisdom goes that a frog dropped in boiling water will immediately leap back out to safety, but a frog sat in water that is slowly heated to boiling point will eventually boil to death.

He said the vast majority of organisations were still requiring staff to work from nine to five, from Monday to Friday, even if their customers had long since migrated to a predominantly digital service model, where they wanted to interact with the business at any hour of any day.

He warned that workers, particularly aged over 35, would find themselves bereft by the impending changes. He said millennials were more adaptable to tech-led change, but the "VCR-era" workers, which is the majority of Australians, were largely unprepared.

"For the current workforce, we learned from the previous generation and expected our skills to last our career. Enter the digital revolution, and that expectation no longer holds and we are now in a difficult position," Mr Curran said.

"Our skills aren't going to last especially when you also consider we will live and work longer than we expected."

Mr Curran said many digital transformation and technology change programs struggled because the executives leading them often in their 50s felt personally threatened by the changes that would happen if they succeeded.

Westpac was seeking to address the impending skills carnage by changing its work processes to become agile and its performance management structure to reward achievements that didn't come from simply following hierarchical orders.

It has also established inhouse training systems to upgrade their skills particularly technology on the job.

"The worst days of my working career are the days that people are made redundant while at the same time we're hiring. We need to get to a point where our people are taking charge and wanting to upskill," Mr Curran says.

"Right now much of the workforce is hanging on by its fingernails ... we're falling asleep at the wheel.

"One of two things will happen. We will either create new jobs and keep everyone employed, or the shift will be so profound we will have to rethink our fundamental work practices and things like four-day weeks become a possibility."

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Westpac tech chief warns of automation career carnage without structural change - The Australian Financial Review

NEW DELHI: Indian business landscape is likely to be influenced by trends like artificial intelligence, automation and digital currencies in the second half of this year, says a report.

The Sanctum Wealth Management's Mid-Year Investment Outlook report for 2017, which identified key trends that are likely to influence asset allocation decisions, noted that companies with disruptive leadership will thrive.

"The advent of artificial intelligence, sharing economies, automation and digital currencies are likely to disrupt the face of the Indian business landscape as we know it today," said Prateek Pant, Head of Products and Solutions, Sanctum Wealth Management, in a research note.

The report said key investments will be in innovation in the fields of energy, transportation and manufacturing, among others.

The report noted that currently solar energy represents roughly 1 per cent of energy production but by 2027, 57 per cent of India's total electricity capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources.

Similar kind of disruption is also visible in the transportation sector. Electric cars accounted for 0.8 per cent of new car sales in 2016, and their sales figure are witnessing a steady rise.

"A shift to electricity and alternative sources of power looks set to positively impact the potential growth rate of the Indian economy," the report said.

It further noted that artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will emerge as the next leg for smart manufacturing.

"As we embark on the second half of the calendar year, with markets in a strong, euphoric uptrend, we seek to identify the key trends that will, in the months to come, provide crucial inputs into asset allocation as well as bottom-up portfolio construction decisions," said Shiv Gupta Founder and CEO at Sanctum Wealth Management.

Excerpt from:

AI, automation to be next disruptions for Indian businesses: Report - Economic Times

Just 15 per cent of broker tasks are susceptible to automation, placing brokers on the lower end of the risk spectrum, AlphaBeta has said.

Andrew Charlton, director atthe management consulting firm, told The Adviser that 15 per cent of the work brokers currently do is susceptible to automation and that, while automation implies change, it doesnt necessarily imply job loss.

The AlphaBeta report titled The Automation Advantage, released in August, found that machines will "unburden" the average Australian worker of two hours of the most tedious and manual tasks a week over the next 15 years.

The report, led by Mr Charlton, also found that as automation becomes more prevalent, jobs will become more valuable, pointing to the fact that wages for non-automatable work are 20 per cent higher on average than for work that a machine could do.

He explained: In principle, when machines take over some of the lower skill tasks from brokers, that enhances their ability to do their job and their productivity should go up and their wages should go up as well.

Fifteen per cent is on the lower end of the spectrum, which means that when you take that job and divide it into all of the constituent tasks . . . most of the tasks are relatively immune to automation in the short term, and the typical reason for that is that those tasks are hard for machines to do the interpersonal interactions or creativity tasks or problem solving tasks.

Automation is already in brokers lives, he added, pointing to automatic emails, the use of internet and researching tools. The economist predicted that over time more programs will creep into other aspects of brokers jobs.

That percentage is very likely to shift in the future as automation grows more sophisticated, he noted.

Tasks in jobs change and it [the percentage] is also based on the quality of the technology that we're aware of today.The quality of that technology can change, so that could accelerate a lot or it could decelerate if the tasks change and the job becomes one that requires more involvement from humans rather than a machine.

He pointed to the introduction of automatic tellers on the banking sector in the 1980s; despite fears that it would destroy the jobs of many bank tellers, the automatic tellers instead reduced the cost of running a branch and encouraged the proliferation of branches.

Mr Charlton commented: We still need people who are working in retail banking, but they're just doing different jobs; they're not dispensing cash and receiving cash and processing transactions; they're giving people advice; they're helping them think through their home loan; they're giving them financial advice and loan advice.

The impact on the industry in terms of jobs and employment isn't necessarily a negative. It [automation] does imply change. It doesn't necessarily imply job loss.

Chatbots

Epictenet CEO Ritesh Srivastava in August predicted that artificial intelligence-based chatbots will soon play a key role in reducing business costs and improving customer service.

Mr Srivastava said that chatbots can be used to answer customer queries in product sale or support.

Chatbots are taking self-servicing in the financial services industry to the very next level after we have seen the success of ATM machines, internet banking, mobile banking and online applications.

We have seen how old static websites have been taken over by new responsive websites, mobile banking gaining popularity over internet banking, etc. These are examples of how the new wave of digital disruption has started disrupting the early generation of digital technologies and it will not be long before live chats will lose the relevance.

[Related: One in five brokers still don't have a website]

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85% of broker workload 'immune' to automation - The Adviser

Huge malware and ransomware attacks often grab the headlines, with WannaCry and NotPetya as recent high profile examples. News cycles endlessly discuss who was affected, how these attacks occur, and what can be done about it. For many organizations and individuals, the loss of a network or the compromise of data is big news and really important.

At the same time, however, we tend to take the services provided by our critical infrastructure resources for granted. We flip a switch and the lights and air conditioning turn on. We turn the tap and fresh, clean water pours out. Goods are delivered, airplanes land on time, and the stock market hums along. But the risks and security of these critical infrastructure resources often flies under the radar.

We may sometimes hear about the targeting of an electrical grid in far off places, but the potential for high-profile cyberattacks on the 16 critical infrastructure sectors identified here in the United States, and the resulting ramifications, are not in the American publics psyche to the degree they should be.

Malicious cyber activity targeted at the nations critical infrastructure including water systems, transportation, energy, finance, and emergency services are particularly worrisome because the interruption of those services can have devastating effects on our economy, impact the well being of our citizens, and even cause the loss of life.

Hackers have a variety of motivations for cyberattacks mischief, bullying, and financial gain among them. However, for our critical infrastructure sectors, attacks can also come from highly motivated cyberterrorists or hacker groups affiliated with nation states or political factions looking to further their cause or establish a military or strategic advantage.

In some cases, these attackers might want to dramatically disrupt public services; in other cases, their goals are much darker, such as wanting consumers to lose faith in the nations financial sector.

There have been documented attacks on critical infrastructure, such as two successful efforts to disrupt the Ukraine power grid in 2015 and 2016. But such events have always seemed safely far enough away. However, this past July, the U.S. government warned nuclear power plants about escalated attacks on their facilities. Such warning ought to make people sit up and take notice. With critical infrastructures increasingly online, interconnected to other resources, and often in the hands of private industry, its time that we elevate this conversation.

The challenge, however, is that in many cases attacks on the critical infrastructure are less than obvious. Many of these intrusions are low and slow. These subtle attacks often resulting in incremental changes to the compromised system worry many security experts because theyre so hard to detect incrementally. Its relatively easy to recognize when major attacks happen, and the victims can then move to counter them. But sophisticated intrusions often subtly work together to eventually become a strategic liability to our country. Imagine a series of malicious activities that, once in place, are able to affect a regions ability to provide a reliable water supply, safely transport oil and gas, or provide timely emergency services.

So what can be done?

The United States critical infrastructure is owned and operated by thousands of entities, and the security problem is so interdependent and complex that were often paralyzed in determining where to start. To move forward, then, lets recall the Chinese proverb: The journey of 1,000 miles starts with one small step.

We need to start by getting security practitioners, critical infrastructure operators, and other groups to agree that securing these sectors is a 10-year problem, not a one-year problem.

Next, protecting our critical infrastructure requires a team effort. The Government cant solve the problem (critical infrastructures are primarily owned and operated by the private sector), and private companies cant be expected to take on other nations cyber militaries. By starting to work together in small ways, broadening security expertise, and conducting joint cyber projects, industry and government can begin to develop the muscle memory necessary to tackle bigger things.

Several critical infrastructure sectors need to start by developing better ways to automatically share threat and vulnerability information within their industries one mans detection is another mans prevention. While some sectors have made serious progress in this area, others have lagged behind. And as critical infrastructure resources continue to become interconnected, the weakest link problem becomes increasingly relevant.

Companies also need to focus more on exploring all dimensions of their risk; too often we focus only on Vulnerabilities and Threats. They need to also ask: What are the bad consequences Im trying to avoid? Consequence-based engineering, the practice of engineering out all the potential bad outcomes from the beginning of the system design process, needs to become the standard for the development of all critical infrastructure architectures, whether physical or virtual.

Finally, critical infrastructure operators need to increasingly embrace security automation strategies to complement their safety-oriented operational technology strategies. The best way find the incremental intrusions and respond in a coordinated and comprehensive fashion is through automation. Human eyes often cant see the low-and-slow attacks, and we cant respond fast enough once a breach has been detected.

Its well-documented that the IT industry is in the midst of a digital revolution that is impacting all segments of the economy, from how people work and interact, to how governments serve their citizens. But less appreciated is the fact that were also on the verge of a security revolution:

Security strategy is one of ubiquity, integrated to work as a contiguous system and powered by automation.

So, in a variation of the it takes a village to raise a family saying, developing a strategic approach to critical infrastructure security takes a critical mass of cooperating people who leverage the best of breed technologies and strategies to ensure our infrastructures not just survive, but thrive. At the same time, we need to better manage the problem of complexity so that it doesnt overwhelm network operators. Automated security systems, managed by a strong guild of security professionals who practice working together in times of non-crisis will be able to meet the needs of the villagers they serve - at digital speeds, and without compromising security.

Watch Phils recent video where he discusses the strategic nature of attacks against critical infrastructure and the actions necessary to bring focus on finding effective security measures.

Read more:

Securing Our Nation's Critical Infrastructure Takes A Villageand Automation - CSO Online

Lawmakers will soon have an important decision to make that will have an outsize impact on our state for years to come: whether or not to approve a deal made by Gov. Walker that could send up to $3 billion in direct cash payments to Taiwanese-based Foxconn to build a manufacturing plant in southeast Wisconsin.

In my initial response to the news I urged my colleagues to proceed with caution. Not only is this an incredibly expensive offer (it could cost the average family in Wisconsin $1,200 and take 25 years or more before state taxpayers break even!) but it could set a precedent with how we approach future economic development at a time when more and more industries are moving to automation as a way to reduce labor costs.

Foxconn is at the forefront of this effort with its publicly stated goal of fully automating its manufacturing process to the greatest extent possible. Theyve already begun by laying off 60,000 workers in China who were earning $3.25 an hour and replacing them with robots.

This begs the question: If they are laying off workers to save $3.25 an hour, why are they willing to pay their workforce here in Wisconsin what appears to be five to seven times that amount?

Since Gov. Walkers initial announcement, Foxconn has already said their plan is to create 3,000 jobs rather than the 13,000 Walker claimed. They also said that manufacturing jobs would pay $13-$15 per hour, which is far less than the $53,000 initially promised.

So what to make of this deal? How does Foxconn plan to make the economics of this deal work for them if they are already replacing thousands of lesser-paid employees with robots? Is it realistic to think that any manufacturing jobs created at Foxconn will still be performed by humans 10, 15 or 25 years from now? It is likely that most of the promised jobs will be automated well before the 2043 break-even date.

According to Walkers plan, state taxpayers will pay to help Foxconn build its plant and local taxpayers will help pay for infrastructure improvements related to the plant. There is even $250 million in borrowing proposed to reconstruct I-94 between Milwaukee and Illinois despite the fact that the governor and Republicans cannot agree on a long-term fix for the billion-dollar deficit in the Transportation Fund.

This all amounts to potentially billions of state and local tax dollars being spent to help a foreign corporation build a plant in which the majority of jobs will likely be done by robots.

If that is the case, then its time we have a larger discussion about what constitutes a job for the purpose of providing economic development assistance and the impact that these new technologies will have on our workforce.

Recent reports suggest that 47 percent of all jobs in the U.S. could be lost to automation in the next 20 years. Those jobs range from manufacturing to retail to the legal and medical fields and beyond. According to a CBS report, even Wall Street is expected to replace nearly 230,000 jobs in the next eight years with machines.

Whether or not these new technologies lead to new jobs that provide better pay and benefits or to large-scale unemployment, one thing is certain: This change is coming rapidly and were not prepared to deal with its impact.

Regardless of where you stand on the Foxconn deal, their stated goal of full automation is not unique to the world we are now living in. It is time for the Legislature to take the issue of automation seriously and do what needs to be done to protect the best interests of taxpayers, our families and our workforce.

Democrat Dave Hansen, Green Bay, represents the 30th state Senate district.

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DAVE HANSEN: Foxconn deal vs. automation trend - La Crosse Tribune

(Governing) -- There is widespread concern these days that robots and automation will soon be permeating much of the American workforce -- taking over factory floors, performing hospitality jobs, becoming ubiquitous in the casinos of Las Vegas. Even Silicon Valley worries about automations effects, although they likely wont be as severe there as elsewhere.

Some recent studies add to these fears, predicting sizable job displacement from numerous forms of automation and artificial intelligence in virtually all corners of the economy. But just as automation will alter industries differently, its effects will be much more intensive in some regional economies.

To estimate the potential effects of automation in those areas, Governing utilized definitions in a University of Oxford study assessing the automatability of individual occupations, then compared them with the Department of Labors most recent occupational employment estimates for the 100 largest U.S. metro areas. About 65 percent of Las Vegas area jobs were found to be susceptible to automation, the highest in any metro area. Much of that stems from the regions large armies of servers, food preparers, cashiers and other occupations thought to be highly automatable. El Paso, Texas, and Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., similarly employ many of these workers, and registered the next-highest shares of potential automatability.

Professors Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, who conducted the Oxford study, assigned a probability to each occupation by evaluating the extent to which its work activities require creativity, social intelligence and perception, and manipulation. Retail sales accounted for the single largest number of possible job displacements as a result of automation in most regions. The New York metro area, for instance, employs more than 500,000 retail salespersons and cashiers. Predominantly low-wage food service jobs are susceptible to drastic change as well, both in the United States and overseas. Robots will start delivering Dominos pizza orders in Hamburg, Germany, this summer.

Regions with higher education levels should fare better. But the Brookings Institutions Mark Muro points out that theres more to it than that. Physical jobs that are more complex or personalized -- the kinds you wont find on assembly lines -- may actually be less vulnerable to automation than routine office jobs. Often, lower-skill but physical, personal or direct-caring occupations seem quite durable, Muro says.

Middle-class, white-collar jobs, on the other hand, can be significantly liable to automation. A forthcoming report from Brookings reviews hundreds of U.S. occupations, finding use and knowledge of digital skills doubled between 2002 and 2016 and led to a wide array of jobs being digitized, including those of office clerks, customer service representatives and accounting workers. The middle is where there will be some of the most disruption, Muro says.

Some well-paying jobs in demand today arent off-limits from automation, either. A McKinsey Global Institute study concluded that some of the jobs most at risk involve data collecting and processing. Around a quarter of the activities of attorneys and physicians were deemed to be potentially automatable.

Large regions with jobs least susceptible to computerization, using the Oxford studys definitions, are high-tech centers, such as San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., and Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. Other metro areas with highly educated workforces such as Washington, D.C., and Boston similarly appear to have fewer jobs vulnerable to displacement. Regional economies relying heavily on education and health care may be less prone to automation because jobs requiring a high degree of human interaction are thought to be among the most resilient.

(Larger markers represent regions more susceptible to automation based on a University of Oxford study. View an interactive map here.)

Of course, widespread automation wont happen overnight. McKinsey projected that half the work activities across the economy today could be automated by 2055. An analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that 38 percent of American jobs were at high risk of automation by the early 2030s. McKinsey studied prior cases of technological upheaval, finding that the time between initial commercial availability and peak adoption ranged between eight and 28 years.

The biggest unknown at this point is whether automation will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Automation itself isnt new, and prior advances in technology and industrialization havent brought about higher overall unemployment over the long term. But a growing number of academics are concluding that automation this time around could, in fact, wield noticeably more harmful effects on the workforce. One highly cited paper by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo forecasts lower overall employment resulting from the introduction of more robots into the workplace.

Other researchers, notably ones at the Economic Policy Institute, argue that automation has not led and will not lead to higher joblessness. Experts appear to be divided almost evenly on this question: A 2014 Pew Research Center survey of experts found 48 percent agreeing that automation, robots and artificial intelligence will displace more jobs than they create by 2025.

While many unknowns remain, it wouldnt hurt for policymakers to start thinking about how to respond.

Some state workforce boards are looking at the issue. States already typically maintain labor market information divisions that project which occupations will be in demand in future years. Preparing farms and their workers for automation was the subject of a recent meeting of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. While there arent yet many programs that specifically address automation, some states are engaged in activities that could help alleviate the impact of job losses. Apprenticeships are gaining a lot of attention and are expanding to health care, finance and other fields where they havent been common before. The model is being modified and theyre really trying to ramp it up, says Scott Sanders, executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.

For workers displaced by automation, community and technical colleges will play a crucial role in the pursuit of new careers. The federal government, however, has historically focused little on workforce training, spending much less than other wealthy nations do. We dont do training in America, we do education, says Anthony Carnevale, who directs the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Our policy is: Go to college.

It was only a few short decades ago that computers began revolutionizing the American workplace. Regions and employers that were early adopters with skilled workforces are well ahead today, and its likely they will continue to be in the years to come.

This article was originally published by Governing.

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Is Automation Anxiety Overblown? - Government Technology

As automation advances, concerns are mounting over the security of human jobs. But should we worry and is there a way for investors to profit from the digital revolution?

The digital revolution that has transformed whole industries is still gathering pace. It has enabled the globalisation of capital, goods and services, as well as the fluid movement of people, helped businesses to pursue lower input costs and enhanced competitiveness.

Now, as automation continues to advance in leaps and bounds, some commentators are suggesting that the future of work itself is at risk from next generation technologies, including artificial intelligence.

A recent PWC survey suggested that in the next 15 years, 10 million jobs may be under threat from intelligent automation. In aggregate, 30% of jobs were put at risk, but in some sectors as many as half of jobs could disappear.

Clearly technology can foster new opportunities for work and drive the emergence of new skills; however, in reality there could be a large surfeit of excess labour caused by automation, as it is likely to first take hold in industries where there are high numbers of relatively low-skilled, repetitive jobs.

While some employees could learn the skills needed to take advantage of the new types of role created by automation, this will not be the case for all. Given the type of work that is at the forefront of seeing these developments, men are more likely to be affected 35% compared to 26% for women.

Sectors most and least at risk from intelligent automation

As companies begin to automate, some organisations have suggested there may be a need for a made by humans label or human production quotas mandated by law; others more prophetically link growing automation with a breakdown in social cohesion as societal norms built around long-term paid employment break down.

The retail sector is particularly vulnerable to these pressures. As costs from implementing the National Living Wage increase, companies are rapidly reducing their overall number of frontline staff through automation. British retail employs around 1.7 million people close to the National Minimum Wage; even modest increases are therefore likely to distress margins and profitability still further. Online retail has led to new areas of work in warehouses and delivery services all largely un-regulated through zero-hours contracts.

Sectors where skills are difficult to automate such as education and health may be more secure, while areas of work that have been staples of employment for over a hundred years, such as train drivers, may completely disappear.

Undoubtedly, business models will adapt and others will emerge which will seek to capitalise from developments in automation and artificial intelligence. In cases such as these, it is a question of balancing the demands of the modern workplace, which are becoming ever more advanced and smarter about how work is done, contrasted with the needs of society, where work is central not only to how we survive but also a source of pride, self-value and purpose in our day-to-day lives.

That is the line that we are walking as socially responsible investors recognising the opportunity to be found in companies that are poised at the cutting edge of automation while ensuring that, as society evolves around the implications of this, we are fully conscientious of a potential world without work and be an advocate for change only when it is to the benefit of wider society.

An example of this from our holdings is Blue Prism, a UK-based pioneer of automation software which enables process-driven work tasks to be conducted robotically. Blue Prism is perfectly positioned to benefit from the continuing shift towards automation in the workplace and its recent H1 results show how the company is achieving this momentum.

Despite the companys founding concept of the creation of a digital workforce, Blue Prism does not seek fully to replace humans in the value chain instead it enables the employees it works for to work more effectively and accurately by deploying automation alongside. It inspires a positive development of workplace, being, as a recent ISG Research Report described it, the future of work and not the end of it.

Alphabet, the parent company for tech giant Google, is also shaping the new world of automation. It is the most prominent global player in artificial intelligence to date, having completed several key acquisitions in the space since 2013 and is successfully developing one of the most comprehensive machine-learning systems (Google Brain) in existence.

This future of work is also a matter for governments and how they prepare and adapt to the possibilities brought by automation. But it is also hugely important that businesses and investors recognise the extent to which there is a corporate responsibility towards managing a changing world of work in a responsible way. At EdenTree, it is no small concern for us and our clients, and we continue to engage with companies over changes to work practises while actively recognising the opportunities it brings too.

Ultimately, automation may be as significant a disrupter as the shift was from agricultural to industrial and from rural to urban in the 19th century. Considering and addressing these issues at the earliest opportunity will be of vital importance to us all.

Neville White is head of SRI policy and research at EdenTree Investment Management

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BLOG: Is automation an opportunity or a threat? - Your Money

Technology is pervading each and every aspect of an organization. With advanced technologies, the number of new applications innovated and introduced as seen an overwhelming rise. Today, we see different apps/solutions that take care and automate different aspects of work in an organization. But while technology is helping to improve the results and effectiveness of tasks and processes, a recent study by Randstad US study which examined perceptions, expectations, and attitudes of job seekers in a job search process, finds that humans are often frustrated when a job search experience is overly automated.

"The findings reinforce what we've believed for quite some time, that successful talent acquisition lies at the intersection between technology and human touch," says Linda Galipeau, CEO, Randstad North America. "By leveraging emerging technologies, we are able to deliver on our clients' and candidates' expectations in a predominately digital world, but with more freedom to focus on the human connection. If done correctly, the right combination of personal interaction with the power of today's intelligent machines can create an experience that is inherently more human."

About 82% respondents of the study, which took feedback from 1,200 people, said that they were regularly frustrated when job experiences were overly automated, with 95% saying that automation should aid and not replace the recruitment experience. In fact, 87% respondents rue that technology has made the job search experience impersonal.

While adoption of emerging technologies offers a seamless digital experience, it is also drastically changing how people connect to jobs. But, 82% of the survey respondents reveal that these innovative technologies come second to human interaction and personal touch. Job seekers find companies that prioritize human interaction, more appealing compared to companies that prioritize technology.

The things that most influenced a candidate's positive impression about a company were the amount of personal and human interaction they experienced during the job search process, and the hiring manager/recruiter they worked with.

While 91% agreed that technology has significantly enhanced the job search process and made it more effective, the time taken and the communication level during the hiring process could greatly affect the impression about the potential employer, and these impressions had lasting effects. According to the survey, 33% of the respondents said that they will never reapply or refer a friend to the company where they had a negative experience during the job search process.

"Employers today, and in the future, will be judged by the experience they create for prospective new hires," adds Galipeau. "Job candidates are empowered to provide instant feedback on employers, rating a company's candidate experience just as they would rate a movie or a product. In a tightening labor market, companies cannot afford to lose potential talent due to a poor hiring experience. And in a technology-driven world of talent, it's not only about how a company markets itself, but what others say about the company that has a positive impact on employer branding."

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Does Over-Automation in Recruitment Help? - HR Technologist

DUBLIN, August 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Worldwide Infrastructure Automation Market - Drivers, Opportunities, Trends, and Forecasts: 2016-2022" report to their offering.

According to this research, the Worldwide Infrastructure Automation Market is expected to reach $65.48 billion by 2022, growing at a CAGR of around 19.9% during the forecast period 2016-2022. Increasing labor costs, human errors, demand for improving consistency & compliance, and technological advancements are forcing organizations to focus on automating their traditional infrastructure to speed up the productivity. The increasing demand for alignment of IT with business needs is one of the major drivers for adopting automation into the business environment.

The adoption of automation for streamlining the tasks is being introduced into systems mainly to address the changing business requirements and to fulfil the demand for improved productivity. Further, rapidly growing urbanization and advancements in technology have created a huge demand for infrastructure automation. Infrastructure automation is the process of scripting the environment, which enables organizations to manage and monitor IT processes without any human intervention. The scripting comprises of installation of OS, configuring servers on situations, and configuring the software & situations to communicate with each other. Infrastructure automation offers agility, flexibility, and improvement in productivity in less time.

These benefits are driving the organizations to adopt automation into their infrastructure to compete in the ever-changing market. The major software companies such as Wipro, HPE, and IBM are investing in the growth of technology to offer enhanced services to end-users.

Companies Mentioned

Key Topics Covered:

1 Industry Outlook

2 Report Outline

3 Market Snapshot

4 Market Outlook

5 Market Characteristics

6 Solutions: Market Size and Analysis

7 Services: Market Size and Analysis

8 Infrastructure: Market Size and Analysis

9 Deployment Model: Market Size and Analysis

10 End-Users: Market Size and Analysis

11 Regions: Market Size and Analysis

12 Competitive Landscape

13 Vendor Profiles

14 Other Dominant Vendors

15 Global Generalists

16 Companies to Watch For

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b856h6/worldwide

Media Contact:

Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager rel="nofollow">press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900

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SOURCE Research and Markets

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Worldwide Infrastructure Automation Market 2016-2022: Key Vendors are GE, Schneider Electric, ABB, Rockwell ... - Markets Insider

According to a 2017 Randstad Employer Brand Research survey of US workers, 76% do not fear their job will be replaced by a machine.

But why is this when there's so much bad news surrounding automation?

Here are five reasons:

1. People are up for retraining as long as pay isn't cut.

Despite what you may guess, most folks don't mind learning a few new things and believe their employers will still need them in ways they couldn't contribute before. Only 6% of business leaders see automation majorly shifting talent needs.

2. Workers believe AI and automation will help them and the company.

A lot of workers feel overworked and believe that automation will make the jobs easier, leaving them more time to get more productive at the things the machines can't do. And that benefits the entire company.

SEE: Special report: How to automate the enterprise (TechRepublic)

3. Some have already seen the benefits.

Nearly half of those surveyed say automation has already positively affected their business.

4. The past is a good example of automation not stealing jobs.

Computers used to be people in a room computing numbers. Machines took away all this work, but somehow office workers didn't disappear. Instead businesses could afford to hire more human-oriented positions that they couldn't before. Things like product managers and customer service.

5. AIs need us.

Maybe someday AI will be able to mimic all the things a human brain can do, but that's quite far away. Humans are better at intuiting things and taking action from indirect experience. Steve Grobman, CTO at McAfee recently wrote about the importance of human-machine teaming in increasing security. That need will likely be true in most industries.

It's not all roses, I know. As with any shift in technology from the lever to the steam engine and on, some people will need some help making the transition. But if we take that into account, most folks don't need to fear automation, in fact it may end up making their jobs much better.

More about automation and jobs:

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Top 5: Reasons not to be scared by automation - TechRepublic

DAVENPORT -- By 2040, at least a fifth of the traffic on Interstate 80 in Iowa will be highly automated, a new Iowa Department of Transportation study says, and planners need to take into account the coming changes when preparing for the future.

The study, which is part of a larger DOT analysis aimed at positioning rural parts of I-80 for the future, says the higher levels of automation would mean increased capacity and fewer accidents.

"These technologies have the potential to really improve safety," said Brad Hofer, assistant director of the DOT's Office of Location and Environment, which was in charge of the study.

Automated vehicle technologies are under rapid development. And although driverless cars are far into the future, some experts say, the idea that a significant share of traffic along Iowa's main east-west highway would be highly automated in less than 25 years is striking.

"In the beginning, I think we were all taken aback by it," Hofer said. However, after discussions with industry sources and others, he thinks the prediction is "in the ballpark."

The DOT study, which was released last month, acknowledges that predicting the adoption of automated vehicle technologies is highly uncertain.

In fact, the DOT's prediction was that, by 2040, somewhere between 20 percent and 85 percent of traffic will be highly or fully automated.

That's a wide range. Even at the low end of use, however, safety gains would be significant, the study said.

"Even at 25% AV adoption, a nearly 20% crash reduction is anticipated," the study said.

At 85 percent, the study predicted, there would be a 50 percent reduction in fatalities and major injuries.

By 2060, the study said, 65 percent to 100 percent of traffic is expected to be highly automated.

There are varying levels of automation. The Society of Automotive Engineers defines six levels, with zero being not automated at all and 5 being fully automated. The DOT's predictions refer to the two highest levels, Hofer said.

There are significant differences between levels 4 and 5, said Dan McGehee, director of the National Advanced Driving Simulator at the University of Iowa.

"It doesn't mean you're going to have robots driving I-80," he said.

He said, however, that at level 4, specific functions have a high level of automation.

McGehee thinks driverless cars are far into the future.

"I don't see that happening for decades," he said.

Iowa has been aggressive in planning for the future. The state is currently in a partnership to create high definition maps of hundreds of miles of roads in the Iowa City/Cedar Rapids area to ready itself for higher levels of automation.

The I-80 study, which was launched a year ago, is aimed at informing policymakers on how to proceed with an increasingly busy rural I-80, particularly in eastern Iowa.

Much of the study is pointing to a six-lane I-80 in the future. Already, in eastern Iowa, traffic is approaching capacity, Hofer said.

The addition of automated technology helps with that problem, he said, but it likely would not stop the need for six lanes in the eastern part of the state.

Greater use of automated technologies could affect the timing and shape of expansion in some parts of the state.

"Adoption of AV buys us some significant capacity," Hofer said.

Several other considerations are going into the I-80 study. Already, the DOT has issued technical reports on the status of bridges spanning the interstate, the option of lane restrictions and investing in state highways that parallel Interstate 80. A final report is due by next year.

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DOT: Higher levels of automation in I-80's future | Political News ... - Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier

Despite the undercurrent of fear about the impact of automation on jobs, a new study of 160 Australian CFOs suggests that more finance jobs will be created than replaced by automation.

The study, sponsored by recruiter Robert Half, has found that 46 percent of Australian CFOs are planning to expand their permanent staff headcount to help implement their company's automation efforts over the coming 12 months, while 36 percent plan to increase temporary or contract staff.

The vast majority of the CFOs surveyed, 86 percent, agree that workplace automation will cause a shift in required skillsets, rather than eliminate jobs altogether.

"Increased automation within Australian workplaces is not about destroying jobs, but rather, adapting to change -- which in turn leads to new opportunities," David Jones, senior managing director at Robert Half Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

"While automation may diminish some routine manual roles, it will lead to faster decision-making, reduce the risk of errors, and eliminate stresses associated with laborious task-management responsibilities. These benefits are available to those companies who embrace workplace automation rather than resist it."

According to the study, the top skill finance professionals need to focus on are problem-solving, followed by strategic vision, commercial acumen, and communication.

Data collection was identified by 88 percent of respondents as one of the finance functions that are either already automated or likely to be automated within three years, followed by invoicing at 85 percent, financial report generation at 84 percent, data entry at 77 percent, and credit management at 77 percent.

"Finance professionals will need to develop skills that complement and leverage the capabilities of automation -- rather than simply hand over control. More advanced technology requires additional, well-developed skills, such as advanced data analysis, interpretation skills, and decision-making skills," Jones said.

Another recent IDC study sponsored by Salesforce showed that AI-driven automation will have a positive impact on productivity, revenues, and job creation.

From 2017 to 2021, the study predicts that AI-powered CRM will create more than 16,000 new direct jobs and AU$19 billion in increased revenue in Australia over the next five years. Improved productivity in Australia will account for AU$4 billion of the revenue boost.

Enterprise investment in robotic process automation (RPA) is set to soar in Australia and New Zealand, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent from AU$216 million in 2016 to AU$870 million in 2020, according to a recent study by Telsyte.

The analyst firm said RPA -- which enables software robots to replicate the actions of human workers for routine tasks -- is now being used or investigated by six out of 10 ANZ organisations with more than 20 employees.

Additionally, 38 percent of organisations with more than 500 employees have active RPA programs in place.

The finance and insurance industries are expected to be the fastest adopters of RPA in the short term, according to Telsyte, although RPA can also be applied to industries with large customer support and request processing requirements, such as telecommunications and government.

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Automation will create more finance jobs than it replaces: Robert ... - ZDNet

In the financial sector, automation technologies will create more jobs than they replace, according to a recent survey sponsored by recruiter Robert Half.

The report, which surveyed 160 Australian CFOs, found that 46% planned to increase their full-time staff to handle their automation efforts over the next year, while an additional 36% planned to increase temporary staff for the same reason.

When asked how automation would impact finance jobs, 86% of the respondents said that it would change the required skillsets, instead of eliminating jobs. This has been one of the prevailing arguments in the business world for the value of automationthat it will free up workers to focus on more thoughtful tasks.

SEE: Special report: How to implement AI and machine learning (free PDF)

"Increased automation within Australian workplaces is not about destroying jobs, but rather, adapting to changewhich in turn leads to new opportunities," David Jones, senior managing director at Robert Half Asia Pacific, said in a statement.

So, what aspects of finance will be automated? First to go will be data collection, according to 88% of the respondents. Invoicing will also be at risk of being automated, as identified by 85% of respondents. Additionally, 84% noted that automation will likely take over generating financial reports, while 77% said that data entry and credit management will be automated.

To remain competitive, Jones said in his statement, professionals in the finance sector must work on skills "that complement and leverage the capabilities of automationrather than simply hand over control." Some examples of these skills would be advanced data analysis, interpretation, and decision-making, he said.

AI and robotic process automation (RPA) have long been discussed in regard to their impact on financial services. However, the greater conversation around digital transformation has also focused heavily on automation, with nearly 90% of tech professionals claiming that IT automation is critical to digital transformation efforts.

"While automation may diminish some routine manual roles, it will lead to faster decision-making, reduce the risk of errors, and eliminate stresses associated with laborious task-management responsibilities," Jones said in the statement. "These benefits are available to those companies who embrace workplace automation rather than resist it."

Image: iStockphoto/Rawpixel

Original post:

The one job market that is safe from the AI and automation apocalypse? Finance - TechRepublic

SUMMARY:

Philip van der Wilt, EMEA VP and GM, ServiceNow, argues that there are areas of work that people will continue to excel at: creation, curation and communication.

Our recent research, Todays State of Work: At the Breaking Pointset out to examine exactly how far organisations are on the road to adopting intelligent automation. The research indicated that adding machines to everyday work drives revenue growth, creates new job opportunities and connects employees back to the work they want to do.

There is a certain leap of faith to overcome here i.e. the notion that automating our lives actually create jobs can appear paradoxical. After all, 87% of executives surveyed by ServiceNow say employees are worried that automation will eliminate jobs.

The leap in understanding we must make is clarified by applied futurist Tom Cheesewright, who in supporting us with the research, and explains that intelligent automation is as much about augmenting the human worker as it is about replacing them. Cheesewright explains:

To date the automation conversation has always been about doing more with less. But whether the tasks are physical or mental, theres a really exciting prospect of extending human capability. Intelligent automation can mean the time, scope and tools to just do more.

The technology model now presenting itself to us is therefore one where we can engineer business process efficiencies into the fabric of new data-driven business models. So how do we achieve this progression? Cheesewright adds:

Friction starts fires. The natural starting point for the application of intelligent automation is to focus on clear areas of business friction: administration, data entry, manual manipulation of information. Very often we find that back-office areas have seen years of stagnation and underinvestment. Addressing this can save resources and reduce risk, but, most importantly, it can create the platform for more transformative change.

Our aforementioned survey of 1,850 corporate leaders validates this need to move to a new tier of business operations. We found that 94% agree that intelligent automation could increase productivity, through the use of Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning, to streamline decision making and to improve the speed and accuracy of business processes.

Further findings from the survey found:

Despite a very tangible level of automation in many areas of our lives, is the world of business keeping pace? In a world of smart homes, smart cars, smart commerce and smartphones, has the workplace itself been holding back against the benefits of smart automation intelligence?

Cheesewright explains:

In my experience, businesses have been dissuaded from starting intelligent automation projects due to the up-front investment costs and a certain nervousness about inflexibility. Automating many workplace tasks has long been possible, but doing so meant expensive and rigid hard-coding of processes, while the operational status quo people remained relatively cheap and highly adaptable.

As with all areas of technology, progress has brought lower cost and greater robustness, but it has also brought more flexibility to workplace automation. Leaders are gaining confidence that the investment will deliver returns and not lock them in.

The automation opportunity is huge, but this does also mean that theres a learning curve, an adoption leap and (for some organisations at least) a perceived chasm between where they operate today and where they could be operating with task and service automation in place. Cheesewright says:

There is a natural apprehension about making fundamental changes to the complex house of cards that is many organisations. The first step is to compartmentalize risk inside clear functions. When processes, inputs and outputs are understood, then experimentation which is cheaper now in the age of cloud computing than ever before can begin.

The most forward-thinking organisations have recognized that there is an overhead to this compartmentalization, but that is the price of rapid adaptability in an age of accelerated change.

So how do we get automation? How do we start our implementation path to automated enhancement? Do we simply call an IT consultant or Systems Integrator, or both? Which department should we start the automation process in, or should it be a company-wide initiative?

Our survey pointed out that IT support is the best at business process efficiency, while Human Resources (HR) is the worst. So, while HR can be named the department most in need of a reboot, does that mean we shouldnt ever start outside of HR?

The truth may be more cerebral than a one department at a time approach the application of automation actually comes down to a people issue.

Cheesewright believes that tomorrows workplace is indeed populated by more machines than people. He is also adamant that intelligent automation is set to transform every industry.He explains:

Its increasingly clear that the workers worthy of a bionic boost will exhibit three skills that are hard for the machines to replicate: the abilities to curate, create, and communicate.

It is these 3-Cs people (and their abilities to exhibit these skills and characteristics) that firms should identify when looking for where to apply the automation advantage. Where the 3-Cs flourish, humans outstrip machines. But it is these precise areas that can now be enhanced by automation.

In the automation-powered future, some machine power will exist as a direct replacement for its human counterparts. These machines and automation controls will work faster, cheaper and, very often, better. But many automation layers (and automated machines) will augment their human partners, expanding their innate skills and boosting productivity. Cheesewright says:

Even without the neural interfaces of science fiction, the gap between humans and machines is narrowing all the time. Multiple sensor inputs combined with machine learning can dramatically increase the apparent bandwidth of communication between us and our tools. The next twenty years will see us create augmented super-humans of creativity, insight and communication.

Working out our new living relationship with automation may be daunting for some, but it is a positive inevitability with a beneficial long-term outcome. Its time to learn to love our machines.

Image credit - Robot and human connecting through electricity bolts Pixelbliss - Fotolia.com

Disclosure - ServiceNow is a diginomica premier partner at time of writing.

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The 3-Cs of intelligent automation Greasing the new engineering between people & machines - Diginomica

Even as markets take a brief breather from a record run of gains, most investors are ignoring a hugely profitable trend. Stocks from the artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and machine learning arenas have been providing handsome returns through the year, in several cases significantly superior to the broader market. Tech bellwethers have caught onto this emerging trend and are making massive investments in these areas.

Future demand for the industry is projected to rise exponentially given that a broad spectrum of industries is rapidly integrating such technologies into their core operations. Investing in stocks from the artificial intelligence and robotics domain would allow you to cash in on an exceedingly profitable trend.

AI, Robotics Stocks Well Ahead of Broader Markets

The success of such stocks can be gauged from the performance delivered by the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF BOTZ and the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO - Free Report) . While BOTZ is up 33.9% year to date, ROBO has gained 26% over the same period. In comparison, the S&P 500, the Dow and the Nasdaq are up 10.5%, 11.6% and 18% year to date, significantly behind the performance of these sector focused ETFs.

In fact, a section of analysts believe that these sectors could outperform there larger peers in the long run, even beating the much-vaunted FANG stocks. In fact, Facebook (FB - Free Report) , Amazon.com (AMZN - Free Report) , Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) and Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) , all of which have gained between 20 to 50% this year, are expanding their footprint in the AI domain. This is why market watchers believe that the robotics-automation-AI trend is likely to be the next FANG-like trading opportunity.

Prospects of a $50-Billion Market Brighten

The idea of artificial intelligence germinated in the 1960s, but only now has it become a lucrative investment proposition. Two catchphrases have caught the imagination of investors and companies at the moment, deep learning networks and machine learning. Both these concepts aim to make successful predictions after mining through large masses of data, a task which several intelligent humans would be incapable of.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that a Goldman Sachs (GS - Free Report) report released in November 2016 claims that companies from sectors as diverse as banking and healthcare are more or less likely to raise their AI expenditure levels. Such investments are essentially being made in pursuit of higher productivity levels which will lead to a smaller workforce. Also in the offing is an elusive strategic edge over competitors, gained from new insights delivered by AI enabled systems and processes.

Such a trend could lead to a massive market for products and services from the artificial intelligence, technology and robotics domains. One estimate from research company Tractica puts revenue from artificial intelligence from AI at $59.8 billion by 2025. If such an optimistic forecast does come true, it would be a quantum leap over 2016s level of a mere $1.4 billion.

Our Choices

Though several of the BOTZ and ROBO components are foreign stocks, several home grown companies are forces to reckon with the in the AI-automation space. With the attention this investing trend is receiving from tech heavyweights, what is now a niche investing theme could soon become a hugely popular investment trend.

Buying stocks from these domains are likely to deliver strong performance, likely well in excess of the broader markets. We have narrowed down our search to the following stocks based on a good Zacks Rank and other relevant metrics.

Brooks Automation, Inc. (BRKS - Free Report) delivers automation solutions to the global semiconductor and related industries. In July, the company acquired California-based biological sample storage and cold chain provider Pacific Bio-Material Management for $33 million in cash.

Brooks Automation has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). The company has expected earnings growth of more than 100% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 6.9% over the last 30 days.

Cognex Corporation (CGNX - Free Report) develops, manufactures and markets machine vision systems that are used to automate a wide range of manufacturing processes where vision is required. In May 2017, the company announced it would be buying back $100 million worth of common stock via open market transactions.

Cognex has expected earnings growth of 42.5% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 17.3% over the last 30 days. The stock has a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Intel Corporation (INTC - Free Report) recently launched its new data center platform called Xeon Scalable. The new platform accelerates inference throughput for Artificial Intelligence (AI), High Performance Computing (HPC) and Virtual Reality (VR). Notably, the company has already delivered 500,000 units of Xeon Scalable to over 30 customers.

Additionally, Intel announced that it has been selected by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to collaborate on developing a powerful new data-handling and computing platform, which will leverage machine learning and other AI techniques.

Intel has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). The company has expected earnings growth of 9.5% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by 4.1% over the last 30 days.

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA - Free Report) and Baidu (BIDU - Free Report) recently announced a partnership, wherein the latter will use the formers AI technology in three different areas. This partnership will help Baidu to bring in the best AI technology in its cloud computing services, self-driving vehicles and AI home assistants.

NVIDIA has a Zacks Rank #2. The company has expected earnings growth of 19.9% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by more than 0.1% over the last 30 days.

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.s (AMD - Free Report) server GPUs have secured a position on Googles Cloud Platform as well as associated Machine Learning services. Also, AMD has recently launched the Radeon Open Compute project (ROCm), an open source coding language for AI systems.

Additionally, AMD launched its Radeon Vega Frontier Edition processor in June, which it describes as the world's fastest graphics card for machine learning development. It also claims that this new processor can render graphics 172% faster than any of NVIDIAs best GPUs, which makes the launch a crucial step for its foray into AI.

AMD has a Zacks Rank #2. The company has expected earnings growth of more than 100% for the current year. Its earnings estimate for the current year has improved by more than 100% over the last 30 days.

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A robotic lawn mower

If you think youve finally gotten a handle on customer engagement, buckle up.

Thats because automation is reshaping customer engagement, according to a recent Forrester report on agents, bots, hardware robots and intelligent self-service solutions that will address customer-facing problems over the next 10 years. (Self-driving vehicles might also relate to customer engagement, such as with taxis or car services, but they were the subject of another recent report from Forrester.)

Automation Technologies for Customer Engagement gives the example of Dallas-based lawn care company Robin Technologies. Because lawn mowing is the least profitable of its offerings, it partnered with tech development firm Dialexa Labs to create a robotic lawn mowing device.

The device lives on the customers lawn, recharges from a base station, contains a GPS tracker and is restricted to the property via an installed wire perimeter. Robin handles maintenance, and the new product frees it to concentrate on more profitable lines of business.

Report author and Forrester Vice President J.P. Gownder sees automated solutions taking over a lot more than grass cutting. In fact, they appear destined to handle most if not all customer interactions, at least for initial touch points like phone calls or physical store assistance as soon as you walk through the door.

I pointed out that interactive voice response (IVR) on phone calls is often so frustrating that I usually request a live operator because its faster. He agreed, but noted that a second wave of IVR is starting to supplement the first, with such vendors as SmartActions more natural interaction voice automation or IPsofts Amelia, an AI-agent designed for interaction with people:

Theres also the matter of fewer jobs. A separate Forrester report, The Future of Jobs, 2027: Working Side by Side with Robots, deals with that subject. Gownder summarized it as saying that hardware and software automation will displace an estimated 24.7 million jobs in the US, but it will create 14.9 million for a net loss of 9.8 million jobs.

Thats a 7 percent net job loss, which Gownder characterized as like the Great Recession. That is, serious but not Depression-level catastrophic.

In addition to the loss of jobs, he said, the biggest impact for US workers will be a change in how we work.

Most people will work side by side with robots or other automated services, he said, at least for the next 10 years, adding that its impossible to predict farther into the future.

Some of the new jobs, he speculated, could be what he described as white-gloved concierge jobs, where human assistance becomes a premium or differentiating feature for brands, as automated customer service becomes the norm.

Brands might also choose other ways to differentiate their customer experience, he suggested, given that many companies will likely license their AI and interaction engines from the same or similar services.

Agents/bots might have brand-specific personalities, for instance. In some cases, additional functions and scale can differentiate, the way banks now tout how many ATM machines they have and what they can do. Autonomous services can also provide more personalized offers at scale than human-run services can, like Persados automation of optimized marketing emails.

In the near term, companies can begin to differentiate themselves by becoming first movers, he said, just as Robin Technologies is now the first on its block with robot lawn mowers. Heres a graphic from the report, with advice on how companies might adjust their automation strategies for robotics and virtual assistants to their own maturity level:

As for marketers, their role is likely to evolve. Gownder sees them focusing more on overall brand storytelling, such as when Autodesk hired professional novelists to write scripts for chatbots.

But marketing itself will likely have to be reinvented. He envisioned a customer, Maxine, whose personal intelligent agent points out that her calendar shows an upcoming formal dress dinner. Since the agent knows she likes to shop at Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, it has already pulled up some possible dresses and cross-referenced them with her styles as shown on her social accounts.

But what about other high-end clothing stores? They dont even get a chance to make their case unless their automated agents have kept Maxine up to date on their selections.

Your agent talks to my agent. It sounds like Hollywood, but it may be how marketers interact in a decade or so.

Continued here:

Forrester report: Automation is taking over customer interaction - MarTech Today