Computers have made businesses far more productive and efficient over the decades, but they also introduced tedious, repetitive and time-consuming data-entry work. Collecting and inputting data from various disparate sources is a necessary task that tends to get in the way of more valuable (and interesting) activities.
Microsoft Power Platform offers several tools that bridge the gap between business operations and technology. One such tool is AI Builder, which uses customizable artificial intelligence models to perform many tasks that would ordinarily take up too much of your team’s time. These models reduce friction in the processes that turn information into useful, ready-to-analyze data. They can quickly process forms, recognize objects in photos and digitize text-based documents.
The good news about receiving an order form is that it means you’ve made a sale. The bad news is that it means someone’s going to have to spend precious time on manual data entry — unless you use AI Builder to process it. AI Builder models can be set up to automatically extract information from order forms, invoices and other key documents and input it wherever it needs to go, such as your company’s ERP system.
AI Builder models can easily be trained to identify your company’s specific products, making it possible to enhance and speed up various processes. For example, a distributor could use an AI Builder model and a warehouse camera feed to automatically detect and count the inventory of a particular product. Or let’s say that a manufacturer wants to speed up the quality control process. They could have inspectors take photos of products and use AI Builder to quickly detect possible issues. It’s like having an extra pair of eyes that also happens to be finely tuned to detect exactly what your own eyes are looking for.
You may already be familiar with optical character recognition (OCR). This technology has come a long way in recent years, and AI Builder’s OCR capabilities are especially advanced. With a text recognition model, you can scan printed and even handwritten documents and automatically convert them into digital text that can be processed and analyzed. If you have customers who prefer to use paper order forms or pay with paper checks, those documents can easily be digitized and entered into your ERP system without requiring any more effort than an online order or payment.
AI Builder can do the legwork of retrieving, entering and preparing information for processing, but that’s not where AI’s usefulness ends. You can also use Power Platform’s AI tools to analyze that data and make better business decisions. For example:
When you integrate generative AI across your workflow, you’re not only speeding up the tedious parts; you’re giving every human on your team a fresh burst of momentum as they start working on the more sophisticated and engaging parts, too.
AI Builder and the rest of the Power Platform can make just about any business process better, but only if they’re properly implemented. If you’re not sure how to get started, or if you simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to do it all yourself, having the right technology partner can make all the difference. To learn how Enavate can help you with Power Platform, AI Builder and the rest of your tech stack, reach out to our team of experts today.