Earlier this year, we surveyed professionals to understand how they plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the process and performance management (PPM) area. According to the survey, only 9% of organizations have made a substantial or full-scall investment in AI for PPM today; however, in the next 12-18 months 79% of participants surveyed expect to see that investment grow.
Through the survey, we discovered how organizations plan to use AI in process management in the future, and we bucketed the responses into the following seven categories:
- Administrative tasks: Includes task automation, internal chatbots, and other day-to-day tasks (like meeting notes, scheduling meetings, and document review).
- Customer-centric: Includes identifying potential customers, customer service and support (including external chatbots), and improved customer processes like self-checkout and website interface.
- Data analytics: Includes data collection and analysis, database management, automated dashboards, and creation of insights.
- Employee experience: Includes employee recruitment, optimizing the onboarding experience, conducting payroll, timesheets, and other human resources related tasks.
- Process improvement/ Project management: Includes process optimization, improving operations process efficiency, project planning, and forecasting.
- Resource allocation: Includes automating resource allocation, analyzing future resource demand, and tracking finances.
- Risk management: Includes quantifying and forecasting risk, along with fraud detection and prevention.
We combined the responses into a word cloud (shown below), and I like to see words like customer and process, along with data, project, and optimization show up as focal points. As we saw in our 2024 priorities research, design-thinking and customer journeys are a focus for organizations. Organizations today rely heavily on customer satisfaction for customer retention, and finding a way to leverage technology to aid that area is a great use case, in my opinion.
Additionally, as a process nerd (read “cool person”) myself, I love to see process as one of the bigger words; it makes me smile. Looking at ways to improve processes, make them more efficient, and remove bottlenecks with the use of AI, and less manual work, is a win in my book! I’ve also heard from members that some AI technologies can aid in the creation of desktop procedures; reducing the time needed from staff, and hopefully decreasing the eye rolls they provide when asked to simply document their process.
Use Case Examples
Below are examples from the survey participants for how they plan to use AI within each of the categories listed earlier in the blog:
Administrative tasks
- “The use of technology to automate repeatable, day-to-day tasks.”
- “Automate mundane and routine tasks, and free up manpower.”
Customer-centric
- “Enhance customer experience through personalized recommendations and inventory management.”
- “Simple routine customer service requests and issues”
Data analytics
- “Data collection and management”
- “To analyze historical data and make more accurate decisions.”
Employee experience
- “Personalized learning”
- “Employee tracking”
- “Payroll”
- “Human resources”
Process improvement /Project management
- “AI supported translation of process models and content, AI generated process specifications, AI generated tips for process improvement.”
Resource allocation
- “Artificial intelligence can analyze resource capabilities within an organization and automatically recommend optimal resource allocation and scheduling.”
Risk management
- “Improve risk and issue management processes by automating the identification, analysis, and provision of solutions.”
Focus on the Foundation
Regardless of how organizations plan to invest in AI, it’s important they focus on the foundation of their process management program first. APQC’s Seven Tenets of Process ManagementSM and process management tools like a SIPOC diagram can help you build a solid foundation for new technology. This foundation, in turn, will enable sustainable gains from technology that are better aligned with your core business goals.
Learn more in our content collection, Digital and Its Role in Process.