In the 1960s, The Jetsons gave the world a peek into a dazzling high-tech future. There were flying cars, sassy robots, appliances that responded to voice commands, and even watches that could make video calls and play TV shows.
Some of this technology is commonplace today, and much of it is powered by automation and artificial intelligence (AI). Both these types of technologies reduce the need for manual labor. Forward-thinking business leaders value both because they increase efficiency and cut down on human error. And there is such a thing as AI automation too—a more adaptable, machine learning–powered form of traditional automation. Still, the two processes do generally have distinct functions, purposes, and benefits. Learn more about these two concepts, as central to our world as they were in Orbit City.
What is automation?
Automation is the use of technology to execute tasks without human intervention. Think of a coffee machine you can program to dispense your daily cup of joe at a specific time each morning. Your machine will turn on, boil water, puncture the coffee pod, and brew your coffee—all while you’re still asleep.
Automation has existed throughout human history, from the water-wheel-powered mills of ancient Mesopotamia to the assembly line machinery of the Industrial Revolution. Automated processes minimize the need for humans to carry out physical tasks, allowing them to perform more complex and creative work.
Today’s technology has expanded the range of tasks that automation can tackle, using hardware and software to perform mundane tasks in the digital world. One common form of this is robotic process automation, or RPA. RPA technology allows software robots to perform repetitive tasks that previously required manual input. For example, a bot might use RPA to extract data from a collection of emails, and another bot might take that data and fill out a series of forms, thus saving human employees from a tedious and time-consuming chore.
If you run an online store, you likely useecommerce automation extensively, whether through inventory management tools, social media posting platforms, or demand forecasting tools that streamline your supply chain management. By ensuring that your business processes run smoothly, automation enables you to focus on higher-value activities.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a collection of technologies that simulate human intelligence. AI systems look for patterns in vast amounts of data, then extrapolate conclusions and produce analyses. As the data sets grow, AI learns from the new data, adapting, problem-solving, and self-correcting without human input or explicit programming.
AI technologies include machine learning, the process explained above, and deep learning, in which the technology uses a system of nodes to process and transmit information, mimicking the neural networks in the human brain. A popular example of AI in action are chatbots powered by large language models, or LLMs. LLMs are deep learning technologies trained on massive data sets that have the capacity for understanding natural language.
AI is also adept at recognizing images and predicting future trends—both of which were traditionally the domain of human beings. These functionalities have many benefits for business owners, allowing you to make more informed decisions, personalize product recommendations, detect fraud, draw conclusions from complex analytics, and more.
As incredible as the AI technology we use today is, it is still considered “narrow AI” or “weak AI.” It performs specific tasks, whether that is recommending your next Netflix watch based on your past search history, generating an image, understanding and answering your question, or whatever combination of tasks it was designed to do. At the other end of the spectrum is “strong AI” or “artificial general intelligence.” This type of AI is purely theoretical and would do more than simply mimic human cognitive functions—it would be able to think abstractly and adapt to completely new situations. But that’s still a long way out.
Automation vs. AI: What’s the difference?
Technically, automation is an umbrella term that encompasses AI: All AI is automation, but not all automation is AI. While both automation and AI can lead to increased efficiency and reduce operational costs in the workplace, they differ in some key ways:
Purpose
One of the main differences between automation and AI is in their essential purpose. Automation is intended to perform task execution. It takes orders, handling the same process in the same way no matter how many times you run it. It is a perfect tool to complete tasks that don’t vary much, like tallying up totals in an accounting ledger.
On the other hand, AI’s purpose goes beyond that to accomplish more complex processes that may require learning, predicting, problem-solving, and decision making in a way that mimics human cognition. While automation reconciles the accounts, an AI tool can analyze that data and identify patterns that might indicate what revenue you might expect next quarter.
Adaptability
Automation is consistent and reliable, but it is not able to adapt to changing circumstances. It is the coffee machine that automatically goes through the steps of making coffee, whether or not you’ve remembered to add the coffee grounds. You set the rules, and automation carries them out. It does not deviate.
AI is a dynamic technology that performs tasks in a context-aware manner. It is able to change its response—or adapt—based on new and different data. An AI-powered coffee machine would be able to sense the grind-size or density of whatever grounds you add and precisely control water temperature, pressure, and extraction time to ensure a perfect brew every time.
Technology
Mechanical processes and machinery can be (and have been) automated without the aid of computer programs for millenia. The Gutenberg printing press, for example, automated the painstaking process of hand-copying manuscripts. Once a page was set in type, it could be copied as many times as a person wanted.
Automation today is by no means limited to mechanics and exists in many forms in the digital world. But whereas automation can exist both with and without computers, AI requires computation power and lots of data in order to function.
Learning
One of the core functions of AI is to learn and self-improve. It’s a technology that generates and collects data, which it then learns from. If you want traditionally automated systems to improve, you’ll need to update them manually.
Take an automated spell-checker and AI-powered autocorrect, for example. If you start using a new slang word, an automated spell-checker won’t recognize it. You’d have to manually add it to the program’s database. But when you’re using AI-powered autocorrect, the program may initially flag the slang word as incorrect, but the more you use it, the more the autocorrect comes to recognize the word and the context in which you use it.
How AI and automation work together
The intersection of AI and automation is called intelligent automation. It’s a self-improving combination of different AI technologies and digital forms of automation (like RPA). Intelligent automation is an end-to-end process that not only reliably performs repetitive tasks, but also gathers data from the operation and performs data analysis to extract insights that enable it to make independent decisions and adapt without human intervention if needed.
Say you implement a program that sends an email survey to every person who purchases a product from your business. That’s automation. If the program then takes the results of those surveys and inputs the figures into a spreadsheet, that’s automation as well. If the program uses AI to analyze the results of the survey, find patterns, and predict risks, you’ve got an example of intelligent automation.
Chatbots are another familiar example of intelligent automation. You might have a chatbot that relies purely on automation. That tool would be able to send specific, automated responses to simple questions based on keywords. However, more complex queries may exceed the automation’s capabilities. In that case, intelligent automation would be able to deploy AI-powered tools to adapt to new information and address those questions to a higher degree of satisfaction.
Automation vs. AI FAQ
What is the difference between AI and automation?
The primary difference between AI and automation is that automation reliably performs routine tasks based on a set of defined rules, whereas AI is able to incorporate decision-making into the process. Both technologies improve efficiency and reduce human error in the workplace, but AI does so in a more dynamic and adaptable way.
Can automation be done without AI?
Yes, you can automate processes without using AI. Automation without AI completes its job based on a set of static rules, like extracting information from a set of forms. It does not adapt or employ any decision-making if the situation or circumstances change.
What are some examples of automation?
There are various ways to apply automation tools in ecommerce to streamline your business operations. You can employ customer service automation by automatically sending a survey to any customer who has completed a purchase. Email marketing campaigns or a checkout upselling are great examples of marketing automation. Maybe you’ve incorporated business automation into your onboarding processes or maybe your warehouse makes use of an automated sorting system.
