IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ininma/v55y2020ics0268401220310100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Will COVID-19 be the tipping point for the Intelligent Automation of work? A review of the debate and implications for research

Author

Listed:
  • Coombs, Crispin

Abstract

As part of the urgent need to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments, healthcare providers, and businesses have looked to applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to compensate for the unavailability of human workers. This interest has renewed the debate regarding the use of AI for the automation of work, which has been described as Intelligent Automation (IA). A new dimension to this debate is whether COVID-19 will be the catalyst for higher IA adoption levels. This article reviews arguments in favour of COVID-19 increasing the level of IA adoption and possible counter-arguments. Key arguments in favour of increased IA adoption include consumer preferences changing to favour IA, increasing familiarity of IA technologies, and increased business confidence in IA. Counter-arguments include big data availability and reliability limitations, many tasks still favouring human skills over IA, the narrow capabilities of IA technologies, and a high availability of human workers. The article also discusses the implications of this debate for information management research and practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Coombs, Crispin, 2020. "Will COVID-19 be the tipping point for the Intelligent Automation of work? A review of the debate and implications for research," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:55:y:2020:i:c:s0268401220310100
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102182
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401220310100
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102182?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chun Song & Lionel J. Beaulieu & Indraneel Kumar & Roberto Gallardo, 2023. "COVID-19-Induced Automation: An Exploratory Study of Critical Occupations," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 37(2), pages 183-197, May.
    2. Christou, Prokopis & Hadjielias, Elias & Simillidou, Aspasia & Kvasova, Olga, 2023. "The use of intelligent automation as a form of digital transformation in tourism: Towards a hybrid experiential offering," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 155(PB).
    3. Arendt, Lukasz & Gałecka-Burdziak, Ewa & Núñez, Fernando & Pater, Robert & Usabiaga, Carlos, 2023. "Skills requirements across task-content groups in Poland: What online job offers tell us," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    4. van Esch, Patrick & Cui, Yuanyuan (Gina) & Das, Gopal & Jain, Shailendra Pratap & Wirtz, Jochen, 2022. "Tourists and AI: A political ideology perspective," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    5. Martin Lábaj & Matej Vitáloš, 2024. "COVID-19 and automation: Evidence from European countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(1), pages 112-121.
    6. Aiguo Yan & Mingtao Yu, 2023. "Board Informal Hierarchy and Digital Transformation: Evidence From Chinese Manufacturing Listed Companies," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    7. Maciej Cieślukowski & Przemysław Garsztka & Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak, 2022. "The Impact of Robotification on the Financial Situation of Microenterprises: Evidence from the Financial Services Sector in Poland," Risks, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-20, February.
    8. Ghobakhloo, Morteza & Asadi, Shahla & Iranmanesh, Mohammad & Foroughi, Behzad & Mubarak, Muhammad Faraz & Yadegaridehkordi, Elaheh, 2023. "Intelligent automation implementation and corporate sustainability performance: The enabling role of corporate social responsibility strategy," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Issa Helmi & Lakkis Hussein & Dakroub Roy & Jaber Jad, 2023. "Examining User Engagement and Experience in Agritech," International Journal of Contemporary Management, Sciendo, vol. 59(2), pages 17-32, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:55:y:2020:i:c:s0268401220310100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-information-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.