cognitive automation
What It Means
Cognitive automation is AI that doesn't just follow pre-programmed rules, but actually learns and improves its own decision-making processes over time. Unlike basic automation that requires humans to update it, cognitive automation can identify patterns, generate new approaches to problems, and refine its methods based on what it learns from data and outcomes.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
This represents a significant leap in automation maturity that can dramatically reduce the need for constant human intervention and system maintenance. However, it also introduces new risks around AI systems making autonomous decisions about their own operations, requiring robust governance frameworks and explainability measures to ensure the AI's self-improvement stays aligned with business objectives.
Real-World Example
A fraud detection system that not only identifies suspicious transactions but also automatically develops new detection rules based on emerging fraud patterns it discovers, tests these new rules against historical data, and implements the most effective ones without human intervention - while documenting its reasoning process for compliance review.
Common Confusion
People often confuse this with regular machine learning or RPA, but cognitive automation specifically refers to AI that can modify and improve its own analytical processes and decision-making frameworks, not just learn from data or automate repetitive tasks.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare, cognitive automation enables AI systems to continuously learn from patient data, clinical outcomes, and t...
Finance: In finance, cognitive automation enables systems to adapt trading strategies, refine risk models, and enhance fraud dete...
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- 6 industry-specific applications
- Relevant regulations by sector
- Real compliance scenarios
- Implementation guidance
Technical Definitions
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
"The identification, assessment, and application of available machine learning algorithms for the purpose of leveraging domain knowledge and reasoning to further automate the machine learning already present in a manner that may be thought of as cognitive. With cognitive automation, the system performs corrective actions driven by knowledge of the underlying analytics tool itself, iterates its own automation approaches and algorithms for more expansive or more thorough analysis, and is thereby able to fulfill its purpose. The automation of the cognitive process refines itself and dynamically generates novel hypotheses that it can likewise assess against its existing corpus and other information resources."Source: IEEE_Guide_IPA
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