For the past few years, the workplace has undergone constant change, and businesses are going digital. To further accelerate the transformation, one important strategy is hyperautomation. The goal of hyperautomation is to reimagine and automate business processes to operate smarter and quicker by using and combining technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and machine learning. Through hyperautomation, tasks can be completed in a shorter amount of time, and decision-making would be a lot easier since data collection and analysis would be faster.
Following our earlier article, we look at recent patents and patent applications in the hyperautomation space.
The Toronto-Dominion Bank
System and method for facilitating performance testing
Hyperautomation is driving significant improvements in customer service through chatbots and virtual assistants, fraud detections and prevention, compliance and risk management, loan and payment processing, among others. The Toronto-Dominion Bank is a multinational financial and banking services corporation and is ranked as the 19th largest bank in the world.
Similar to most industries these days, the Toronto-Dominion Bank has a TD app that clients may download on their phones for a convenient banking experience. Organizations like the Toronto-Dominion bank may contract a third-party to develop these apps and may outsource the testing of the apps to ensure the proper and safe execution of these software. Software testing is typically a manual and laborious task. U.S. Patent Application 2023/0091697 makes this task easier by executing testing using a modeling engine referred to as “workload modeling system” to automate production feedback and start testing automatically. The model allows continuous performance testing, preventing manual efforts.
The modeling system has access to a mapping module, which is coupled to a database containing a source code. It is also connected to a datastore of test scripts that list the actions and directives that must be followed throughout a certain performance test. The mapping module is then set up to match the source code for a test application with one or more test scripts in order to identify the sections of the source code that are pertinent to the functions of the scripts. Based on the identified functionality, a trained workload model is generated and automatically initiates at least one of the performance tests using the trained workload model.
U.S. Patent Application 2023/0091697 was filed on November 1, 2022, and was published on March 23, 2023 to The Toronto-Dominion Bank.
Genesys Cloud Services Holdings II LLC
Utilizing conversational artificial intelligence to train agents
Customer service is a important part of each business. Customer service representatives are taught by a trainer who monitors their live calls. This process, however, is time-consuming and exposing a trainee agent to a real client at an early stage might provide poor quality experience. The WO2023043783 PCT application resolves this problem by providing a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) to train contact center agents.
When the new agent logs into the system, the automated training system will place a call, and the conversational AI training bot will initiate a conversation with the agent by asking questions. The AI processes the discussion while simulating a client and evaluates the agent’s reaction, abilities, and training progress. The agent’s response speed and correctness were also assessed to provide complete feedback.
WO2023043783 was filed on September 14, 2022 and was published on March 23, 2023 to Genesys Cloud Services. Genesys is a company that sells customer experiences to organizations. Genesys has been named a Leader in “The Forrester Wave™: Contact Center as a Service, Q1 2023.” Their product, Genesys Cloud CX, is transforming the contact center industry and recently received the highest score for artificial intelligence, workforce optimization, self-service, and outbound capabilities criteria.
UIPath, Inc.
System and computer-implemented method for testing an application using an automation bot
In 2017, a study has shown that 90% of employees are burdened with mundane and repetitive tasks. Hence, automation, specifically, robotic process automation (RPA) can help alleviate the issue by providing advanced bots to perform the tasks. RPA uses automation technologies to imitate office tasks of human workers, such as data entry and data processing and analysis. It is noninvasive and can be adopted easily to accelerate digital transformation.
This patent filing by UIPath, a provider of robotic process automation software, relates to an RPA system that facilitates various automated activities such as clicking a button, reading a file, writing to a log panel, typing into a text box, and hovering over a GUI element. The patent application describes the use of an automation robot to test and interact with one or more applications. Some applications of this invention are as follows:
- Web Application: An example of an application is a web application that requires a user to sign up or register. The user account is created by the automation bot by entering a username, email address, and password. After that, a message confirming the account’s creation is sent to the email address.
- User Action Emulation: Another example is when the automation robot emulates a user’s activity when interacting with an application such as Microsoft Office 365. The automation bot can open a document and even upload or download it in a web browser.
WO2023043468 was filed on October 28, 2021 and was published on March 23, 2023.
More on Hyperautomation in our Parola Analytics 2023 Technology Trends Report.
