The term hyperautomation was coined by Gartner to describe “a set of business or IT process design and decisions where the scope and degree of automation delivered spans a spectrum of technologies.”
This may sound like a change merely in degree—just more automation than companies are using right now. But that’s not thinking big enough. Hyperautomation actually represents an evolutionary shift, as seen in this diagram from the Gartner report:
(Source: Gartner. Top 10 Strategic Technology trends for 2020: Hyperautomation. Published March 2020 (ID G00450634)
Beyond orchestration, hyperautomation combines multiple orchestrated systems working intelligently in unison, often boosted by a “digital twin,” meaning a fully virtualized model of the entire business, mirroring identical conditions and, as IBM explains, using “real-time data and other sources to enable learning, reasoning, and dynamically recalibrating for improved decision making.”
In the simplest possible terms, this means that the more work tasks you can move toward hyperautomation, the greater the business advantage. This is especially true because, as Gartner has emphasized again and again, the journey toward hyperautomation is not all or nothing but rather, smart iteration based on careful, business-based decision making.
Gartner further explains that hyperautomation is not one single path; it’s an iterative process that begins with recognition of the need for greater intelligence and consolidation of resources.
First and foremost, the journey must be business-driven, meaning it takes a disciplined approach to approving certain business processes that are appropriate for automation. Organizations must make choices based on their needs at any given time, carefully weighing the costs and potential benefits.