Think of intelligent automation (IA) as a well-conducted orchestra—automation keeps the rhythm steady, handling repetitive tasks, while artificial intelligence (AI) adds the finesse, making smart decisions in real time.
Together, they create a seamless performance behind the scenes of your favorite online shopping experiences. If you’ve ever interacted with a friendly chatbot when visiting an online store, you’ve crossed paths with intelligent automation.
IA uses several technologies to optimize business processes. For ecommerce businesses, it can be a game changer, maximizing efficiency in both back-end and customer-facing processes. Here’s a deeper look at how intelligent automation can make your business hum like never before.
What is intelligent automation (IA)?
Intelligent automation (IA) marries artificial intelligence with traditional automation and business workflows. This streamlines operations that typically call for manual human input. Intelligent automation—also called cognitive automation—supercharges business operations from logistics management to customer experience. Leveraging advanced reasoning and deep learning, intelligent automation helps businesses unlock heightened efficiency, cut costs, and elevate customer service.
How does intelligent automation work?
Intelligent automation works by combining AI technologies, including deep learning and natural language processing, robotic process automation (RPA), and business process management (BPM). Here’s how each element functions:
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Artificial intelligence. AI serves as the brain behind the intelligent automation process, leveraging cognitive technologies such as deep learning to interpret dynamic data and problem-solve accordingly.
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Robotic process automation. RPA uses automation tools like software bots to handle structured, repetitive tasks (e.g., data entry, customer service responses, report generation). When paired with AI, RPA becomes more flexible and accurate over time.
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Business process management. BPM provides a framework for managing workflows like customer service and order fulfillment.
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Computer vision. Computer vision gives software the ability to identify people, objects, and places in digital images. This technology can augment automation in inventory management, product searches, and personalized marketing.
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Optical character recognition. Character recognition converts images into readable text. OCR can process receipts and invoices, read product labels and descriptions, or analyze return and warranty requests.
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Natural language processing. NLP is a key element of IA, powering customer service chatbots, running sentiment analysis on customer reviews, and automating email responses by interpreting human language and responding appropriately.
Intelligent automation technologies integrate AI and robotic process automation within the framework provided by business process management, ultimately improving workflows and the customer experience.
Key benefits of intelligent automation
Intelligent automation is a cornerstone of digital transformation—the process of using technology to radically improve how businesses operate, deliver value to customers, and adapt to changing market demands. It improves nearly every facet of the ecommerce funnel, from capturing customer data to efficiently delivering orders. Here are just a few of the key benefits.
Two benefits of intelligent automation are cost savings and enhanced employee productivity. By reducing employees’ load of repetitive tasks, IA creates opportunities to use resources more efficiently. A 2025 McKinsey study found that intelligent automation made employees more productive, allowing them to spend the time saved via automation on entirely new activities.
Additionally, automating repetitive tasks boosts accuracy. Intelligent automation can quickly analyze large amounts of structured and unstructured data, limiting human error. It can also use this data to provide actionable insights, thus supporting informed decision-making.
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Ecommerce intelligent automation use cases
Here are some of the most common IA use cases in ecommerce:
Customer service
Intelligent automation improves the customer experience by more efficiently collecting customer data and then using that information to better serve customers. For example, an IA chatbot that can access a customer’s purchase history can speed up customer support tickets. These 24/7 chatbots can also improve customer engagement by reducing the time between the support query and response, helping track shipments, and issue order returns.
Dynamic pricing
When it comes to running a competitive ecommerce business, pricing is key. Intelligent automation can support dynamic pricing by analyzing real-time data such as competitor prices, customer behavior, and fluctuations in demand. Taking these analyses off an employee’s plate allows prices to shift as needed—or even provide custom prices based on past customer behavior and seasonal factors.
Order fulfillment
Intelligent automation is a valuable tool in supply chain management. It optimizes order processing and shipment tracking, making the status readily available to customers and quickly moving the order through each stage of the process. For example, IA can route orders to the most efficient warehouse location or tap a delivery partner to expedite a shipment if needed. By preventing human error, automation reduces the need for customer returns and exchanges, lightening the burden on the supply chain.
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Inventory management
Intelligent automation tools remove the need for tedious inventory management tasks like scanning inventory and calling for restocks. Instead, they monitor stock in real time, predict demand, and call for restocks based on current orders. This shortens fulfillment time, reduces costs, and fosters a more responsive supply chain.
Product recommendations
Intelligent automation leans on artificial intelligence to provide product recommendations to customers, both new and returning. By analyzing a customer’s purchase history, the behavior of similar customers, browsing history, and demographics, IA can serve customers real-time insights during their shopping experience. This can boost sales and maximize profits for budding and established ecommerce businesses, as one-third of shoppers report making occasional purchases based on recommendations.
Intelligent automation FAQ
What is the difference between intelligent automation and RPA?
Intelligent automation (IA) utilizes robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning to automate processes and tackle complex tasks. On its own, RPA automates repetitive, rule-based tasks. In short, RPA is limited to simple automated tasks, while IA has the ability to reason and adapt to dynamic working conditions.
What is the difference between AI and intelligent automation?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a system capable of learning, problem-solving, and reasoning—abilities previously the domain of humans. Intelligent automation (IA) pairs AI with traditional automation tools to complete complex tasks. IA is capable of handling unstructured data and changing work conditions.
What are examples of intelligent automation?
Chatbots and AI assistants—which can manage customer queries and optimize calendars—are common examples of intelligent automation. IA can also handle complex ecommerce business processes like making personalized product recommendations, intelligent inventory management, and fraud detection.
