How is automated technology helping people to work from home?

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are working from home than ever before. However, home working and remote working provide a trending situation that had been growing in popularity long before coronavirus loomed into view. Therefore, it stands to reason that technology is evolving to help people adapt to this new way of working.

Automated technology, such as that which operates through the Internet of Things (IoT) and through machine learning, may be helping to make millions of people’s lives that little bit easier. Companies such as SambaNova systems, headed by Rodrigo Liang, help bring autonomous tech to more and more enterprises across the US. The Bay Area business is one of many intriguing AI-friendly firms that are helping established companies find new ways to enhance their productivity.

However, those working from home, not just in the office, can benefit from AI, machine learning, and more. Here are just a few ideas that are likely to grow more popular in the years to come.

Rescheduling made easy

Working from home means managing your own schedule. Therefore, for the uninitiated, this can be a little bit of a shock to the system. What if you accidentally schedule something when a meeting you’d forgotten about is already in that slot?

There are some bots available which can pick up on calendar conflicts, and which can actually send rescheduling requests based on your own parameters and priorities. This could tie in with something as simple as an online calendar or schedule manager, such as through the Google Suite.

This saves having to overwork or having to tear your hair out over which bit of your schedule you need to rearrange. It’s all handled for you through complete automation!

Physical checks taken care of

Of course, one of the major stumbling blocks home workers will face when first transitioning to this new way of working is to rethink distractions. Not getting distracted while working in a comfortable environment can be hard.

It’s thought that Facebook’s research and development specialists are looking into robotics that could perform automated checks for people in their own homes. This is reportedly revolving around a concept known as embodied cognition or EC. A robot could deploy to check if something is turned off or locked, for example.

In the years to come, this could mean that home workers can spend less time worrying about checking little things and getting distracted altogether – and instead, focus on their tasks at hand. It may be a wait before we have robots to help us in such an amazing capacity, but it’s fascinating that this is a direction we may be traveling in.

Lead generation and mapping

For those of us working in sales, or running our own businesses, capturing leads can take a lot of time and effort. It’s also a job that may not drive the results we expect. In any case, for many people, actively initiating contact alone can be a menial task that takes time away from actively running a business.

Therefore, it’s exciting artificial intelligence is already helping us to automate lead contacting, contact building and relationship drivers along the way. Of course, building client and customer relationships should always retain some form of human contact – but journey mapping is easier than ever thanks to advanced analytics.

Automated lead generation and journey building means that you can actively fill in the gaps with your own expertise, applying your own knowledge and talents while AI takes the reins with the menial steps along the way. You’re still in control – but you’re not losing any time to the steppingstones that get you to the end result.

In fact, some surveys show that as many as nine out of ten companies may already be using AI to map journeys. For the home worker, where time is tight and resources may be limited, AI and automation are likely to be major productivity boosts.

Does automation hold the key to the future of home working?

Regardless of whether we work on or offsite, there is never going to be ‘peak efficiency.’ As demands grow and as technology evolves, that ‘peak performance’ ceiling is always going to get higher and higher. Crucially, it’s healthy for us to understand our own limits as human beings.

As a home worker, there are always going to be elements to your day which are going to need physical, human insight. However, AI and automated processes are going to help us achieve unthinkable efficiency for years and years to come. It is mind-boggling how advanced our tech already is – and it’s only going to get more efficient from here. The rise of the robots is looming, and it’s not the ‘evil uprising’ the movies keep warning you about!