Advancement in technology is providing solutions to multiple business challenges and bottlenecks. Processes across various industries used to be slow due to traditional methods, legacy systems, and manual work. Now, processes are much simpler and quicker due to new technologies and their integration in business. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed the way businesses plan and execute their strategies.
Global companies are now adopting AI to grow and expand amidst a dynamic, competitive market. International Data Corporation (IDC) reports that global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) is forecast to double over the next few years, growing from $50.1 billion in 2020 to more than $110 billion in 2024.
This research shows that AI and related technologies are used in mainstream cases worldwide. One such process that is evolving due to AI is document processing. Let’s see how AI is transforming the document processing landscape.
Legacy Document Processing Vs Intelligent Document Processing
Document processing has been there for centuries where most businesses gather, maintain, and process business data from documents. Industries, such as banking, finance, insurance, logistics, human resources, and legal all thrive on documents. These industries rely on data present in documents to run their business.
The traditional method of processing documents to extract useful information is a human or a team of humans who have to manually go through each and every document to extract data relevant to the business. The extracted data would be stored in more documents that were susceptible to damage and corruption. This process would take weeks or even months, slowing down business strategies.
Since the market is dynamic with unpredictable outcomes, a slow process would cost businesses greatly. Then the IT technology brought forth solutions for document processing. With software tools, businesses were able to load and process data quicker than before. But even then, the document processing was usually done manually. Manual processing consumed a lot of time, resources, and workforce and continued to be a challenge for businesses.
Now is the era of artificial intelligence. Technology has evolved significantly, the tasks that could take weeks and months are completed in days and hours, thereby enabling quick services. Businesses can complete tasks quickly and provide rapid or instant services to customers resulting in customer retention and revenue generation. Let’s consider how exactly AI can meet the current document processing challenges successfully.
Artificial Intelligence – Segments of Technology
AI can perform human-like tasks, such as content learning, text and speech recognition, and problem-solving. With AI-based technology, systems can perform specific tasks by analyzing large volumes of data, identifying data patterns, and processing the data as per the patterns. But AI is an umbrella term, as it can be divided into different segments, such as Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), Computer Vision, and Natural Language Processing (NLP).
Machine Learning
A part of AI, ML is mainly a software program that uses specific algorithms to parse data. ML can analyze data and produce desired output without human intervention. Computer models are trained with ML algorithms to process data and perform tasks.
Deep Learning
DL is a subset of ML where its algorithms are similar to ML, but its capabilities are not analogs like ML’s. Computer models are trained with DL algorithms to perform classification tasks using neural network architecture and large volumes of labeled data. DL performs classification tasks directly from images, texts, and audio.
Computer Vision
Computer Vision enables AI to extract meaningful insights from digital videos, images, and visual content. AI enables computers to think, while DL enables them to observe and understand.
Natural Language Processing
NLP enables AI to read text or interpret speech to understand and manipulate natural language with the same ease as humans do. The two basic concepts of NLP are Natural Language Generation and Natural Language Understanding that enable virtual assistants and chatbots to communicate with users.
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)
IDP is a combination of AI, ML, Computer Vision, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and NLP technology. OCR has evolved with new-age technologies. Previously traditional OCR meant extracting data only from structured documents and required manual effort for adjusting template settings.
Advanced OCR can now extract data from unstructured images and documents, and ML techniques enable automated extraction and processing of data. Document processing powered by AI brings on tons of benefits, such as improving business efficiency, automating processes, optimizing data capture and extraction applications, and delivering insights for better business planning.
Intelligent Document Processing can:
Accurately identify different fields and layouts in documents, such as names, amounts, and contact details.
Efficiently detect unclear texts and automatically fix errors, such as blurring, background lines, low-contrast, and uneven text.
Effectively process and give data output in multiple formats, such as HTML, XML, TSV, PDF, and JSON.
Quickly move data from physical documents to applications reducing time and expenses.
Increase productivity by automating around 70% of manual data entry tasks.
Easily integrate into existing enterprise systems and IT environments.
AI and related technology are totally reshaping the whole document processing structure. Some of the ways are:
Extract: AI can extract relevant data from multiple document types and formats, minimizing manual work.
Cluster: AI can analyze and group documents into specific topics.
Classify: AI can classify data based on document content and categorize them.
Process: AI can read, understand, and process data information in documents.
Unlock: AI can unlock unstructured data locked on documents and convert it to usable, structured data.
Quality: AI can offer accurate data insights, minimize redundant data, and eliminate various errors.
Security: AI can detect sensitive and confidential information and mark such information for document security.
Analytics: AI can process data correctly and offer prediction and visualization insights for making data-driven business decisions.
Support: AI can simplify document development workflow by proofreading and editing data automatically and supporting document management.
Transformation: AI helps businesses modernize their processes, streamline workflows, automate tasks, and aid in digital transformation.
Neutrinos’ AI-Powered Contribution to Document Processing
Neutrinos – a low-code platform, has designed an AI-powered Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution that easily extracts and digitizes unstructured data from different documents using advanced AI and ML capabilities. Neutrinos’ IDP helps businesses automate and streamline their document processes, thereby increasing productivity, reducing costs, and boosting customer experience.
https://goneutrinos.com/how-ai-is-transforming-the-document-processing-landscape/