In 2000, the founders of Netflix, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, offered to sell the company to Blockbuster (a dominant player at the time) for $50 million. Blockbuster turned down the chance because it didn’t see digital streaming as the future.
Fast forward to 2024: Blockbuster has gone bankrupt and ceased operations, while Netflix stands tall as a media giant with a valuation of $310.19 billion.
There are many such cautionary tales that exemplify why business leaders today fear missing out on transformative technologies. Artificial intelligence (AI) now presents a similar pivotal moment for companies: adopt and grow, or risk being left behind in a rapidly changing marketplace.
This fear of missing out (FOMO) is driving businesses to invest heavily in AI. According to the ABBYY State of Intelligent Automation Report 2024:
- 63 per cent of global IT leaders are worried their companies will fall behind if they don’t adopt AI.
- Over the past year, the average US business invested approximately $650,000 in AI.
- 96 per cent of companies plan to increase their AI investment in the coming year.
However, in a world where everyone is rushing to leverage AI, the key to standing out lies in adopting purpose-built AI – solutions specifically designed to address unique business needs and challenges.
Purpose-built AI is redefining operational efficiency
Purpose-built AI solutions are designed and built specific to your organisation and the type of documents fueling enterprise systems. Ulf Persson, CEO at ABBYY, explains it well: “Purpose-built AI allows businesses to extract value by focusing on solving the exact challenges unique to their processes, unlocking efficiency that generic solutions simply can’t match.”
Implementing AI can raise questions about costs and even the potential for misuse by employees, which are concerns reported by 35 per cent and 33 per cent of IT leaders, respectively. By contextualising both the data and the purpose behind AI tools to an organisation’s specific operations, the odds of their misuse as well as the resources required to power them can be reduced.
Persson shares two compelling examples to illustrate how purpose-built AI delivers real-world benefits. A Fortune 100 financial services firm used process intelligence to analyse transactions across hundreds of internal systems. This data-driven approach revealed significant ROI opportunities through process improvements, resulting in $6 million in savings.
Similarly, an AI company specialising in simplifying import and export processes implemented intelligent document processing (IDP) to achieve 99 per cent straight-through processing of customs declarations with 100 per cent accuracy. This reduced customs clearance times to under five minutes, streamlining cross-border trade.
As businesses continue to seek operational excellence, such customized AI solutions play a pivotal role in streamlining processes, improving decision-making and unlocking hidden business value.
Intelligent workflows with process mining and IDP
Process mining and intelligent document processing (IDP) represent two powerful applications of purpose-built AI that are revolutionizing business operations. These technologies offer unprecedented insights into organizational workflows and automate complex data extraction tasks, driving efficiency and informed decision-making.
Process mining unlocks hidden value within existing information systems by analyzing event logs, providing a clear, data-driven view of actual business processes. This increased transparency enables businesses to identify inefficiencies, bottlenecks and deviations from ideal workflows.
Key benefits include:
- Increased process transparency (77 per cent of companies report this as a top benefit).
- Data-driven improvements and more accurate forecasting.
- A more productive workforce (up to 58 per cent increase in labor productivity).
- Streamlined operations (up to a 40 per cent decrease in overall process times).
- Compliance automation (can increase ROI by up to 45 per cent).
- Real-time monitoring and smarter decision-making
- Accelerated digital transformation (global process mining revenue to reach $2.3 billion by 2025).
Complementing process mining, IDP transforms how organisations handle unstructured data. Modern IDP systems, powered by advanced OCR and natural language processing, can extract and contextualise information from various document types with over 90 per cent accuracy. This capability is crucial for organisations grappling with large volumes of data, reducing manual errors and accelerating decision-making processes.
Together, these technologies are driving the next wave of digital transformation.
Building an AI-ready organisation
As businesses navigate the complexities of AI adoption, building an AI-ready organisation becomes crucial for long-term success. This journey involves more than just implementing new technologies. It requires a holistic approach encompassing strategy, culture, and infrastructure.
To become AI-ready, organisations should:
- Cultivate a data-driven culture by encouraging decision-making based on data insights across all levels of the organisation.
- Invest in training programs to upskill and reskill your workforce with AI literacy and data analysis skills.
- Develop guidelines and governance structures to establish ethical AI practises.
- Break down silos to encourage knowledge sharing and innovation for cross-cultural collaboration.
- Invest in scalable IT infrastructure that can support AI initiatives as they grow.
This helps businesses create an environment that not only supports AI adoption but also drives innovation and competitive advantage.
As your organisation takes this transformative journey, partnering with experienced AI solution providers becomes invaluable.
ABBYY, with its comprehensive suite of AI-powered technologies and deep expertise in digital transformation, stands out as a trusted partner. ABBYY’s solutions in intelligent document processing and process mining, coupled with strategic guidance, can significantly accelerate your organisation’s path to becoming truly AI-ready.
“Innovation leaders no longer have the luxury of deciding whether or not to implement AI,” adds Persson. “Investing in AI will continue in 2025 and will demonstrate a profound ability to generate transformative business value. ABBYY strives to make it as easy as possible for organizations to achieve this value with purpose and agility. With decades of experience in AI, we know the processes and data that are most ripe for intelligent automation, and we’re excited to be driving success in these crucial areas with purpose-built AI.”
To learn more about how you can partner with ABBYY to accelerate your journey toward AI readiness and access customised solutions that align with your unique challenges and goals, click here.
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