Surge of user interest in GenAI this year: Automation Anywhere's Kothari

The impact of process automation to address the looming workforce productivity challenges will be enormous, says Kothari

Automation Anywhere, which develops robotic process automation software, says customers are curious about its capabilities as awareness grows about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). ANKUR KOTHARI, chief operating officer and co-founder at Automation Anywhere, spoke to Ayushman Baruah about the company’s strategy. Edited excerpts from an email interview.
 

How much has Automation Anywhere invested in AI and GenAI?
 

We are not able to share specifics, however, approximately 50 per cent of our R&D (research and development) capacity is focused on AI-driven product initiatives including developing generative AI capabilities.
 

What is your company's strategy to leverage the demand for GenAI solutions? 
 

Our strategy continues to help all our customers connect easily to their existing IT (information technology) and business applications through our platform. And with GenAI infused throughout our platform, we have created the industry’s first-ever GenAI automation models for work. We have added 400 new features, including the ability to enforce development best practices. We have seen more than 150 million automation runs in the cloud and growing. Our newer offerings are seeing an incredible growth of 410 per cent.
 

Which sectors are adopting your solutions?
 

The key sectors adopting our automation and GenAI solutions are healthcare, banking and financial services, manufacturing, and life sciences. This has been facilitated by our collaborative partnerships with prominent technology vendors in the industry, resulting in the development of more than 170 joint solutions of exceptional value. We put AI to work across every aspect of an organisation.
 

How can GenAI increase efficiency in the BFSI sector and transform banking operations?
 

The impact of process automation to address the looming workforce productivity challenges will be enormous. Based on recent statistics, the global AI market size for financial services grew to $9 billion in 2022 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 26 per cent and is expected to touch $24 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 28 per cent.
 

As organisations begin to scale, it can be tough to sustain adequate productivity levels and efficiency. GenAI and process automation together improve solutions in terms of streamlining processes, reducing operational costs, enhancing compliance performance, and increasing customer experience. Gen AI is incorporated to help banks and other financial services providers alter manual, data-intensive operations while still adhering to strict regulatory and compliance standards.
 

Gen AI has also been helpful in empowering banks to modernise their anti-money laundering processes. Using Google's anti-money laundering AI, HSBC significantly improved its ability to detect financial crime risk. 
 

What per cent of your revenue is from India?
 

Since our inception, India has been strategically important for the company, both from a revenue and workforce standpoint. On the revenue side, India is one of the top three markets for us. More than 70 per cent of our global workforce is based out of India. Most of our cutting-edge products are jointly developed out of India and the US. We were born in Vadodara in India and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to establish our headquarters. 
 

How has the adoption of GenAI been among your Indian clients?
 

There is a lot of excitement and interest. This year there has been a notable surge of interest in Generative AI, sparking curiosity about its integration with our automation capabilities. 
 

This emerging revolution has positioned GenAI as a key addition to automation to empower people across organisations.