The IDC CIO Sentiment Survey has consistently shown automation climbing the priority list since 2020. Indeed, according to the 2023 survey (September 2023), 71.1% of respondents said they were accelerating or continuing to invest in automation to replace part of the workforce, and 73.7% said it was to improve processes in the context of difficult economic conditions. However, traditional automation approaches are no longer sufficient to compete today. A new perspective is needed — one that operates at the scale of the future enterprise and the speed of environmental changes. Deep automation transcends traditional automation approaches, offering a holistic, adaptive, and evolutive strategy at the enterprise and ecosystem level. Unlike siloed or shallow automation efforts, deep automation architects a perspective that integrates customer experiences, value streams, human-machine collaboration, and synergistic technologies to create intelligent, self-adjusting businesses. Deep automation, like deep learning, combines simple components vertically — in multiple layers — to create sophisticated capabilities. It leverages hierarchies, synergistic transformation, and distributed processing to produce complex, intelligent systems. This approach enables exponential improvements beyond standard automation, emphasizing intelligent decision-making and orchestration. Deep automation transforms enterprises into living organisms, integrating technologies, processes, and data for self-adjustment. It emphasizes end-to-end integration, intelligent design, and continuous learning. Unlike traditional approaches, deep automation is holistic, adaptive, and evolutive, prioritizing human-machine partnership and customer experience for optimal efficiency and impact.

Full report : Deep automation: A CIO weapon for turning disruption into opportunity.