STATE OF AUTOMATION 2023

Year-over-year, Ashling Partners, a leader in hyperautomation, surveys organizations
across industries and verticals leveraging Intelligent Automation (IA) programs to
deliver on business outcomes. The State of Automation Survey produces key
results, allowing your organization to benchmark itself against the industry as it
relates to evolving automation challenges, value drivers for program management
and performance, along with technology-enabling capabilities within your Intelligent
Automation programs.

Key Insights and Result

Budget Increases, Value Realization, and More!

The results are clear

More and more companies are leveraging Intelligent Automation to accomplish their unique sets of goals and objectives. These key insights into the top results display the increase in Intelligence Automation programs and the importance of these programs as part of every company's roadmap.
results

57%

of respondents expect an increase in budget, up from 48% in 2022

36%

of Citizen Development programs are in some
stage of support

70%

of respondents stated value capture and realization as one of their top three
challenges

32%

of respondents expect more than 26 automations to be produced in the following year (and 6% will have more
than 50)

38%

of IA programs are leveraging more than two types of Artificial Intelligence technology

The State of Automation Survey Revealed Three Key Themes:

1

Evolving Automation Challenges

2

Value Drivers for Program Management and Performance

3

Technology-Enabling Capabilities

All three themes are critical for automation and business success, and they are all somewhat dependent on one another.

1

Evolving Automation Challenges

Overcome common challenges within your automation program

Clear Communication

Across departments, companies are facing similar challenges of value capture and realization, change management, funding, and awareness. Communicate early and often with your team to face challenges and change management head-on while continually developing and/or optimizing your automation program.

Value capture and realization is the number one challenge faced, followed closely by change management, funding, and awareness.

Change management continues to be an area of investment, and finding the right modeland executing it is important to keep theprogram alive.

Pipeline is a leading indicator of IA program health and continues to be a struggle, which shows that few have created a continuous discovery environment. The average pipeline has gone down from 35 to 30 since last year.

0%

of respondents expect an increase in budget

0%

of IA programs have incorporated a change management process

0%

of respondents do not have a formal intake process

0%

of respondents are leveraging two or more methods for ideation, and 34% are using three or more techniques and tools

0%

of automations among respondents are attended

0%

of Cit Dev programs are in some stage of support with only 3% operating at an enterprise level

0%

of respondents stated value capture and realization is one 
of their top three challenges 

0%

of respondents approach challenges by enforcing 
strategic alignment with executive leadership

2

Value Drivers for Program Management and Performance

The benefits of Intelligent Automation are defined with value and governance

Top Values

Time savings, optimizing workforce productivity, and establishing and optimizing an Intelligent Automation program through a Center of Excellence (COE) are high values among organizations.

84%

of respondents say time savings is in their top two priorities

76%

of respondents have development standards around the quality and reusability of their code

32%

of respondents expect more than 26 automations to be produced in the following year (and 6% will have more than 50)

82%

of IA programs are using some form of Agile

31%

of the average company is leveraging automation, according to respondents

47%

of programs outsource some level of
support for automations in production
3

Technology-Enabling Capabilities

Horizons are broadening and transforming Intelligent Automation programs

Multiple Technologies

The scope of Intelligent Automation programing continues to broaden with companies leveraging multiple technologies to deliver on bigger results, implementing automations, and increasing software products in their automation programs.

Only a handful of respondents have expanded their automation capabilities leveraging multiple technologies.

Cloud migration and adoption continue to increase.

0%

of respondents leverage RPA 

0%

of respondents leverage document ingestion

0%

of IA programs are leveraging more than two types of AI technology 

0%

of respondents leverage low-code apps

0%

of IA programs have some or all of their IA platforms hosted in the cloud 


The 2024 State of Automation survey features responses from 35 organizations in the Intelligent Automation industry. Though this is a small sample, it's a useful benchmark for how Intelligent Automation is growing and how your company can benefit.