Theodore Bergqvist, Co-Founder & CEO of Turbotic, shared his thoughts on what a “self-driving company” means, and when we can expect it to happen.
According to Theo, an autonomous enterprise controlled and managed by robots and AI models is an enterprise, where human is taking a passive part in running end-to-end processes. At level 3 — Conditional Automation and Intelligence — the workforce is not driving parts of the functions and tasks, even if given the tasks. Automation and intelligent solutions and applications run several major processes and decisions under limited conditions. If needed, the workforce step in and assist. This is the stage where the most Automation and AI mature companies have been last years.
Reaching level 4 — High Automation and Intelligence — is the stage where the workforce in the enterprise is not driving the main processes in the company. Automation and AI features will not require the workforce support. These features can drive the company processes and decisions that go beyond workforce support, but these features can drive under limited conditions and will not operate unless all required conditions are met.
We are still a few years away from reaching step 4 and 5 (Fully Automated and AI-fied company), and a good guess is that top performing companies will reach stage 4 in 2025. However, Autonomous enterprises will not go mainstream until we have solved the most burning questions of all:
“How do we keep all these technologies together?”
The answer is probably the same as for the car industry, where cameras, sensors, GPS, and a lot of other technologies existed already 15 years ago; an operating system. The 4th level of autonomous enterprises will increase the possibility to cross-breed technologies, navigate through processes and use artificial intelligence to optimize functions and even technologies to talk to each other in order to make the right decisions, without the presence of a workforce.
The technologies in an autonomous enterprise must be capable to distinguish between a good decision and a bad decision, as well as running a process smooth less. This is also why the AI component is of such importance. Robots and applications cannot alone create the self-driving company, and only an intelligent system can keep it all together. So, If you have started to automate a single workflow, it’s time to take the next step with enterprise-wide AI.
