The News: Amid a push to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and create better experiences for customers, partners, and clients, a majority of global decision makers say they plan to fully embrace the autonomous enterprise within the next 10 years, according to new research conducted by Savanta and unveiled at PegaWorld iNspire, the company’s annual conference in Las Vegas. The study surveyed 600 business decision makers worldwide on their understanding of the autonomous enterprise, their plans for implementation, and some of its drivers.
The autonomous enterprise, as defined by Pegasystems, is an organization which comprehensively applies AI and automation to engagement, servicing, and operations across the organization to operationalize agility and create a business that can become self-optimizing. According to the study, 58% of respondents expect to define themselves as an autonomous enterprise within the next 10 years.
Currently, just 15% of respondents say they are already at this stage, and 36% project they will reach this point 5 years from now. Notably, 73% of respondents said they already have some sort of plan to start becoming an autonomous enterprise, and 96% of respondents expected to fully embrace the autonomous enterprise within 10 years. You can read the full Press Release with the details from the survey here.
Survey: Decision Makers Embracing the Autonomous Enterprise
Analyst Take: Research conducted by Savanta and unveiled at PegaWorld iNspire found that a majority of global decision makers say they plan to fully embrace automation within the next 10 years, and nearly three quarters of respondents said they already have some sort of plan to start becoming an autonomous enterprise. Several key findings from the survey indicate that while decision makers realize that technology investments into legacy or standalone applications and off-the-shelf software solutions result in operational inefficiencies, about one quarter of respondents say they spend between 51% and 100% of their annual IT spend on maintaining solutions that are no longer fit for purpose. Further, 41% say that investments in disconnected legacy systems have resulted in increased costs.
The Road to an Autonomous Enterprise
Based on the survey results, it seems clear that enterprise decision makers understand the risks and costs associated with taking a piecemeal or quick-fix approach to technology investments. However, these leaders also worry that that siloed legacy technology, systems, and channels has already led to disjointed customer experiences, poor customer service, or loss of customers and revenue.
In an interview conducted at PegaWorld 2023, Francis Carden, VP, Intelligent Automation and Robotics, Pegasystems, explained how the financial cost of maintaining older, inflexible technology platforms can hamstring organizations seeking to innovate, simply because there is only so much budget to go around “The customer experience is ultimately going to be the differentiation and for the competitiveness,” Carden says. “So, if you’re an organization where 80% of your applications are just legacy debt and you’re competing against the newer organization that has a 20% [legacy debt], you can’t provide a better service at a better cost.”
Indeed, customers are expecting more timely and relevant engagement, not just during sales opportunities, but across their entire journey. Dedicating significant budget allocations to simply patching, fixing, or maintaining legacy applications and systems will result in lower investment into technology that can have a measurable impact on a customer’s experience, such as AI, omnichannel engagement strategies, and immersive experience technology, such as augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR). Further, creating a true autonomous enterprise will enable a more efficient and scalable approach to maintaining and optimizing applications as new features and tools are released.
Unified Platforms Support More Efficient Workflows and Application Development
The survey results indicate that more than 8 in 10 respondents recognize that unified platforms that connect systems and channels to automate, optimize, and align workflows and decisions to business strategy will be either “extremely” or “very” important to improve their operational efficiencies. This can have a positive impact on agent workflow and job satisfaction, which often translates to better customer experiences.
A unified platform, combined with generative AI tools that allow users to create new applications that are more efficient to develop and run, will allow organizations to eventually pivot away from legacy applications, Carden says, noting that you can apply newer analytical AI and generative AI technology to legacy systems. “But these new technologies are coming on board so fast, it’s better to do it on a platform that’s current, as opposed to trying to entrench it in all that legacy code where you don’t know where half of it is, right.” Carden says.
AI Will Play a Huge Role in Business
The survey also found that 75% of respondents agreed that AI will have a role to play in their business over the next 5 years, with 40% indicating it will be “pivotal.” Although there are certainly concerns about the use of AI, particularly generative AI, which can produce results that cannot be explained, most technology vendors and end customers I spoke with at PegaWorld this week indicated their organizations were taking a cautious approach, making sure that a human was in the loop to review any AI-generated content before it was sent out to the public.
Further, there are few strategies that can be leveraged to make sure that even open-source large language models (LLMs) that are being used are controlled. Organizations can ground these open models by only allowing the model to using a constrained set of company data when trying to provide a response to a prompt. Another strategy is to utilize embedded generative AI, which involves providing a set of text or images that are designated as the source from which the model draws its conclusions. Finally, some organizations likely will opt to develop their own private LLMs, over which they will have much more control during the training and reinforcement learning process.
The use of all types of AI (generative, analytics, and process) are going to help accelerate the transition to an autonomous enterprise. However, organizations will need to dedicate significant time and resources to educate their customers and, in some cases, regulators, about what AI can and cannot do, how it will be used, and how the data collected by the company will feed into these models.
Similarly, organizations will need to make decisions around which types of models to use for a use case, balancing performance, accuracy, and compute costs, while also ensuring that the AI solves actual business problems that can return ROI quickly.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
