Last updated on January 30th, 2026 at 06:42 am
We’re continually hearing today how AI is coming to revolutionise businesses, replace countless jobs, and basically change the entire world. There’s just one problem with most of these predictions: they’re coming from the heads of AI companies. In other words, people who are trying to sell AI solutions or attract investors. Of course, they’ll say it’s going to change everything.
The reality is that nobody knows the future, but in the field of business automation, AI looks likely to have a large impact. From AI robotics software breakthroughs to the role AI plays in software testing, this blog will explore why AI shows such promise in this area and what it could mean for future businesses.
It Enables Dynamic, Rather Than Static, Automation
Automating business processes is not a new concept. It’s exactly what machines in factories and production plants do, as well as computers in many office-based businesses. But these have always relied on rules, requiring clearly defined inputs in order to deliver predictable outcomes. AI, on the other hand, is more dynamic.
When changes need to be made to rules-based methods of automation, this often comes at great effort and cost. First, the necessary changes must be recognised by someone, or may only be noticed after they’ve already caused problems for the business. Then, engineers or software developers are needed to make the changes. AI can potentially not only recognise when changes are needed, but implement them itself.
It Identifies and Solves Bottlenecks
AI can actually do better than recognise changes when it becomes obvious they are needed. It can actually anticipate them. It can analyse historical data about businesses in order to predict bottlenecks, such as payments that might be difficult to approve or large orders that will be hard to get the raw materials for.
Often, issues like these go unnoticed by people until it’s too late. People can’t be completely vigilant all the time, but AI can be. This means fewer surprises and much smoother operations.
It Can Perform Physical Tasks
When we think of AI right now, we usually think about types of programs we run on a computer. They can provide us with useful information, or do some basic computerised tasks like sending invoices, but they can’t carry out physical tasks in the real world. Except, they will soon be able to.
Breakthroughs in AI robotics are enabling businesses to use AI to do physical tasks that it could never do before. And as we’ve mentioned, it won’t become stuck when it encounters something that doesn’t fit a clear description. Even in the physical world, it will likely be able to analyse these and come up with a response, without human intervention.
It Will Help Make Human-Led Processes More Efficient
Doubtless, there will still be tasks within businesses that need to be completed by human agents. And some of these may require them to use specially developed software. Traditionally, the process of testing potential software for use inside a business has been a huge bottleneck. Developers and IT experts would have to manually search for bugs, make sure the software executes as expected, and check that it can be updated and maintained.
Using AI in software testing can speed this up significantly. It’s more efficient at reviewing code and generating tests, and it can also offer solutions faster than professionals might be able to.
It Handles the Challenges of Scaling Automation
There’s a cliché in the restaurant industry that whenever a successful restaurant opens a new branch or franchise, the quality decreases. Rules-based automation suffers from a similar problem. Even when you’ve got a successful recipe to follow, scaling up brings problems for businesses that are hard to anticipate.
AI, with its ability to both automate processes and make predictions based on analytics, has the potential to anticipate problems. Knowing what’s likely to go wrong and taking steps to prevent it will make scaling businesses much smoother.
New Executive Activities May Be Automated
AI can potentially do more than just improve upon things that are already possible to automate. They can also automate entirely new tasks, even ones usually performed by executives. The process of looking for new markets to serve or businesses to acquire, for example, is usually slow. It may only begin when somebody hears a rumour or a news story, and they then have to gather information and analyse it.
Depending on how busy they are with everyday operations, this can lead to opportunities being missed because executives weren’t paying attention or moved too slowly. AI can potentially figure out where to find opportunities and monitor them in real time, gathering facts and sorting good opportunities from bad ones. Humans only need to become involved when a final decision needs to be made.
Conclusion
It’s wise not to ask the barber if you need a haircut, and similarly wise not to ask tech tycoons about the potential of their products. But for the reasons presented here, you should take AI seriously. Using it for automation alone could revolutionise your business. Governments around the globe have started creating national AI plans, and it would be wise for anybody in business to follow suit.
