Is artificial intelligence a temporary fashion or the future of business?

On October 28, 2020, we participated in the 12th International Scientific Conference of the College of Management and Quality Sciences at the Cracow University of Economics (Knowledge - Economy - Society).

Our Vice President of the Management Board and CSO, Marek Jurkowski, spoke as an expert whether artificial intelligence is an opportunity or a threat for controllers and financiers.

Initially, we should answer the question of how to properly understand artificial intelligence (AI) and whether it is sometimes confused with the broadly understood automation and robotization of business processes.

Robotization was mainly associated with the industrial area as replacing human work with robots. Currently, it is also closely related to the service environment, where the role of robots is taken over by IT applications that automate business processes (Robotic Process Automation).

We are not always aware of it, but it is already happening. We strive to accelerate simple activities, perform them automatically, practically without or with little human involvement.

Until today we have implemented a number of different functions in Intense Platform, which have just such a task. An example is the automation of the invoice circulation process. Currently, we usually receive invoices to a dedicated email address. The system will connect to our e-mail account, download the message with attachments, create a document and enter it into the electronic circulation in the Workflow module. During this operation, the OCR engine is started, thanks to which the content is read from the invoice attachment in .pdf format. This allows you to complete the document form with relevant data. Then, based on the implemented algorithms, the appropriate accounting scheme is selected so that the invoice can be described analytically. If it passes all validations, it can be transferred to the accounting system and then to the payment order. To sum up, from the moment of receiving an e-mail with an invoice through registration in the system, analytical description, verification - all this can be performed by the system automatically. A person will be involved only when there are any non-standard situations or data inconsistencies with the established validation conditions.

Is there anything more that can be obtained from the use of artificial intelligence?

Currently, this concept is understood and defined in various ways. It is said that the AI ​​we are dealing with is still not very intelligent. However, it shows great potential. The machine or application will no longer just recreate the execution of certain algorithms, but will be able to ‘think’. Neural networks that are constantly learning are used here. They process huge amounts of data so that they can later make their own decisions. However, before artificial intelligence becomes fully intelligent, we can certainly use its elements to quickly provide people with the right data necessary to make right decisions. Still, man has a strong position here, and if we learn to use these benefits of technology properly, it will give a great chance for development and gaining a competitive advantage.