The era of the office might be about to change yet again. Recent advances in clerical processing and software automation have upped the ante, and now many businesses are wondering whether there is any limit to productivity.
Part of this excitement is being driven by so-called “agents” – the next step is autonomous system development. Rather than merely responding to queries, these are being designed to be proactive in the world, helping their owners (i.e., businesses) complete real tasks based on initial instructions.
Experts like to explain this concept as making autonomous systems more human. Agency implies that these solutions can do things by themselves to complete the broader objectives set for them. For example, agents might be able to set up online businesses, including payment systems, without human oversight.
Document processing is another example. Agents could potentially print, photocopy, scan, append, and perform a range of tasks to meet overarching goals, like meeting regulatory requirements or putting together a report for clients.
Apryse, which operates its own PDF manipulation library, believes that these developments are transforming numerous highly clerical industries already. It thinks workflows are about to undergo a shift that is more radical than what happened during the 1980s when personal computers first came on the scene.
“Part of the excitement about this process,” Apryse explains, “is that it gives clerical staff high-order tasks to perform, making them the supervising or organizing force in the enterprise. Companies don’t have to hire dozens of people to perform brain work, simply because the machines are doing it for them.”
Developments in Clerical Automation
Recent developments in clerical automation have been quite profound. Most financial sector firms now use AI systems for accounts payable or fraud control, transforming how the industry operates and how it interacts with its customers.
Multi-agent systems are also beginning to see the light of day. These are unified RPAs that enable further innovative automation within enterprise settings.
Even SaaS is experiencing a hit. Agent-based systems are allowing enhanced customer experiences for software-as-a-service platforms.
“We believe that the number of industries that can benefit from clerical automation will expand because of the ability to outsource,” Apryse confirms. “Previously, vendors targeted many of these systems at legal professionals, healthcare practices, and educational establishments where knowledge work is heavy. However, there are now opportunities to bring the price down across the board.”
Benefits of Clerical Automation
The benefits of using agent-based AI systems for clerical tasks are growing. Many of these solutions can reduce processing times for repetitive tasks, which is changing how payroll and recruiting work. These previously required considerable handling, and people had to dedicate most of their time to them. But with AI, that’s no longer the case.
Compared to traditional automation, agent-based approaches are also more adaptable. Companies can simply provide them with broad-level goals and ask them to complete them, without spelling out every step they need to take. This ability to “fill in the gaps” goes beyond conventional LLMs that generally remain inside their software while providing answers to queries, and won’t do much else.
For example, businesses today can ask ChatGPT to build a business plan for them. However, they can’t ask the tool to explore the web for a website builder service, build the site according to best practices, set up the payment systems, go on social media, and gather customers, and check back regularly to ensure the business is profitable. That can’t happen on legacy models, but it might be possible in the near future with proper agent-based options.
What’s most exciting is the possibility of automating “non-routine” tasks in the clerical sector. For many years, rote tasks have been automated away, leaving many people in the sector having to make do on lower wages. But more recently, that hasn’t been the case, and the AI is now moving in the direction of being able to assist up and down the skill tree (as traditionally perceived). This new capability means that inequality is more likely to fall than to rise with the advent of AI agents, as more individuals and organizations will gain the power to effect real changes on the world without having to first expend the energy.
Challenges of Clerical Automation
Of course, many challenges with clerical automation remain. While LLMs and multi-system agents are growing in power every year, more frameworks will be necessary to control what they do. Many worries about AI come down to the possible things agents might want to do to fulfill their objective functions (e.g., turn the world into paperclips because that’s what their programming said that they should do).
More down-to-Earth examples might include asking the agent to program a virus to attack certain organisations or to create a dangerous compound to release in a public space. No doubt, agents could perform these tasks, but their developers would also need to ensure that people couldn’t “jail break” them and use them for nefarious tasks outside of clerical matters.
Unifying systems could also be problematic going forward. While machines are good at performing specific tasks, many are haphazard and require using overlapping systems, programs, and formats.
“This problem is one that we believe in tackling at Apryse,” the company says. “It starts with document processing, but it could grow much wider than that as the AI technologies improve and more can be done. Systems with similar senses and understanding as people could essentially perform the role of humans in stitching many of these tasks together.”
Looking to the future, AI agents appear to be just around the corner. However, businesses will need to train people on how to move from clerical tasks to higher-level activities. The goal in coming months and years will be to figure out how to use these technologies and leverage them. Companies will need to train their staff on using these systems, prompting them correctly, and ensuring safety. By 2030, it is likely that clerical automation will dominate the market and offer unprecedented efficiency. It’s just a question of getting from here to there.
