LLMs and digital employees

Digital employees, also referred to as digital workers, non-human workers, or intelligent agents, are software-driven entities capable of autonomously performing end-to-end knowledge-based processes using a diverse set of skills. The specific tasks and responsibilities of digital employees vary based on their job role, industry, and the objectives set by the manager or employer.

Digital workers are not to be confused by robotic process automation (RPA) bots. The significant difference being that RPA bots cannot read and understand unstructured data, which comprises 90% of enterprise data, and are designed for a specific, structured task. Digital workers, powered by LLMs via intelligent document processing solutions, augment human roles by undertaking entire business functions and can independently manage tasks like processing invoices and proactively answering queries without being pre-programmed. Typical digital employees can handle customer inquiries and utilize corporate knowledge bases, training materials, and corporate information systems, such as help desk, CRM, and ERP tools, vital for their duties. They can also undertake intellectual tasks such as data analysis and problem-solving and adhere to company policies and procedures including privacy policy and confidentiality.

More advanced digital employees will be able to collaborate with team members to achieve collective goals, engage in training and development, participate in meetings, and report to supervisors or managers, provide updates, seek feedback, and obtain guidance on tasks and projects.

There is a great opportunity to augment software developers, sales consultants, healthcare providers and payers, the legal industry, finance and accounting, and even the transportation industry with digital workers. The underlying benefit LLMs provide human workers in these fields is automating access to information faster and more accurately.

LLMs can be added to ERP, CRM, EHR, and BPM systems via low-code / no-code intelligent document processing (IDP) solutions to boost performance and business results. In the legal field, briefs, motions, and contracts can be reviewed and executed faster. In healthcare, providers can accelerate the approval for patients to see a specialist, and payers can automate many aspects of case management and the review of explanation of benefits to expedite payments.

Across all industries is the improved performance of accounts payable automation. From logistics to pharmaceuticals to financials services and everything in between, invoices and purchase orders are the heartbeat of a company’s revenue. Accounts payable (AP) clerks benefit from having critical data automatically available within ERP systems that enables them to elevate the type of work they perform. Most organizations that use AI-powered AP automation systems see a 400 percent increase in employee productivity, 91 lower lower invoice processing costs, and 81 percent faster invoice processing time—which means more revenue.

The time to train digital workers is also significantly faster. Rather than taking months to train a legal clerk or healthcare administrator, digital counterparts can be trained on relevant LLMs within two to six weeks.

But it’s not just in software where digital employees can contribute toward a more digital organization. We’ll also see it in autonomous vehicles.

Imagine a transportation company with 100 trucks, where 90 trucks are operated by human drivers while ten trucks are controlled by digital drivers that operate 24/7 non-stop without requiring any fuel but are limited to routine routes. The ten digital drivers can work alongside human drivers and could potentially spare humans from urgent, undesirable routes.

Human workers welcome AI counterparts

The stigma of using AI among the workforce is lessening. In fact, human workers are embracing the performance enhancement results digital workers are offering. A recent global ABBYY survey, State of Intelligent Automation: Impact of the Economy on AI Priorities, found that 60 percent of IT leaders implementing AI attributed an increase in higher value work; 62 percent reported employees are happier; and 59 percent said employees are more innovative. Furthermore, nearly half have had an increase in staff retention levels since introducing AI in automation.

To further the dialogue of the impact of digital workers with human workers, leaders are invited to join the International Digital Workers Association. The goal of the association is to unite efforts in maximizing the economic benefit and to develop industry API standards. The association will also spearhead industry standards for information security, privacy, and confidentiality, and define ethical norms. Visit https://www.digitalworker.pro/association to learn more.