Generative AI use surges 400% in businesses, says report

Workato, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered automation and integration platform, has released its third annual Work Automation Index, showcasing key trends impacting automation in the past year. Major takeaways from the data include a 400% rise in the use of generative AI in business operations, with Revenue and IT operations leading the generative AI adoption.

The report, which studied data from 1,055 midsize to enterprise Workato customers, also outlined that a new automation approach that embraces agility, systems thinking, and inclusiveness is increasing. This mindset demonstrates how organisations are revolutionising their work with AI, automation, and integration. Workato's Chief Information Officer, Carter Busse, predicts, "If 2023 was the year of AI, 2024 will most certainly be the year of Automation and AI."

Interestingly, the report revealed a 400% growth in processes involving generative AI in just one year, with generative AI endpoints swelling by 500%. Revenue operations were at the forefront of this increase, utilising genAI in 48% of processes. IT operations closely followed, incorporating genAI in 31% of use cases. Business operations teams also escalated their automation efforts and were responsible for automating 27.7% of all processes in 2023 – the highest across IT or business teams.

Commenting on the trend towards complexity, it was observed that automated processes are now linking to more apps, requiring more steps, and demanding increasingly sophisticated logic. Besides, 11% of automated processes created in 2023 include humans in the loop for approvals or exception handling. Furthermore, the conventional role of IT teams is changing, as IT personas now build 56% of automations, but are increasingly responsible for guidance and governance for the 44% of automations managed by business teams.

In terms of regional adoption, the EMEA and APJ regions have embraced automation practices fastest, with EMEA seeing a 209% year-on-year growth in recipe development and APJ recording 173% growth year-on-year. Saiesh Prakash, Senior Manager, Enterprise Integrations at Coinbase, notes that "Leaders are becoming increasingly aware of how ingrained AI needs to be in our strategies, decisions, and digital transformations."

The report is designed to expose the workflows and analyse the role of automation and AI across departments and functions. The research used anonymised data sampled over 36 months from 2021 to 2023 from Workato customers who use automation in their businesses.

With these revelations, 2024 is gearing up to be a transformative year in the realm of automation and AI, with business and IT operations teams leading the way in adopting generative AI into their processes, expanding automations across their organisations, and driving growth and adoption as automation becomes more accessible.