Bots & Business

Exponential growth from 200 to 2,000 employees is, to put it mildly, a challenge for the Human Resources department. UiPath has experienced this growth recently, and in that process its own Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology has been used to keep that process on the right track.

Spot, the well-known four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics, is now also for sale in Europe. Commercial sales of Spot had already started in the United States, following a successful Early Adopter program in which a number of companies in both Europe and North America integrated the robot into their operations.

The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market will reach $ 1.89 billion globally by 2021, up 19.5% from this year. Despite the economic damage from the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is expected to continue to grow at double digits through 2024, says research firm Gartner.

What will the workplace of the future look like? What role does AI play? What role do robots play? These questions are answered in UiPath’s Immersion Lab. The lab exists in physical form, but due to the current corona limitations, the experience of hyperautomation can also be undergone completely virtually. Visitors can experience for themselves, for example on the basis of a concrete business case, the advantages of working with a robot. The Rocking Robots team spoke about this with Chief Robotics Officer Boris Krumrey.

In the United States, more and more stores are using retail robots. For example, retail chain Schnuck Markets will expand the deployment of Simbe Robotics robot Tally with another 46 stores, using the real-time data collected by Tally at 62 locations.

Respect and responsibility, that’s what developing AI is all about, says Kathy Baxter, Architect, Ethical AI Practice at Salesforce.  “In fact, developing AI is like raising a child. As a developer of AI, you are actually a parent.” According to Baxter, we must therefore always show sufficient respect and responsibility.

Neil Sahota recently released the book Own the AI Revolution. In this book – which is specifically aimed at non-technically skilled business leaders – he helps his readers to recognize and seize the opportunities of AI.

A Gartner poll of roughly 200 business and IT professionals on September 24, 2020 revealed that 24% of respondents’ organisations increased their artificial intelligence (AI) investments and 42% kept them unchanged since the onset of COVID-19.  Growth – namely customer experience and retention, and revenue growth – along with cost optimisation were the top focus areas for their current AI initiatives.

RPA provider UiPath and eSentire, provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR), today announced a strategic partnership to provide end-to-end automation of security services. Learning AI is used in this solution.

Volansi, vendor of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), middle-mile drone delivery services, has begun a commercial healthcare drone delivery project in North Carolina. In collaboration with Merck Volansi is piloting the delivery of cold chain medicines from Merck’s Wilson, N.C. manufacturing site to Vidant Healthplex-Wilson, a Vidant Health clinic, as the first of three phases in a project to learn about drone technology’s role and ability to improve access to healthcare.