For all the anticipation of increased automation at work, commentators have spent a lot of energy trying to convince people it can only handle easy, repetitive processes. It’s time to finally confront the truth: Per the McKinsey Global Institute, today’s robots can handle up to a quarter of the average CEO’s job and 35% of management tasks. While robotic process automation refers to using robots to speed up concrete processes, cognitive automation takes a more advanced version of the same underlying tool set and applies it to more conceptual, judgment-based tasks — what we now call “knowledge work.” Using specific AI techniques that approximate the way our brains work, cognitive automation helps us make better decisions, complete tasks faster, and meet goals more easily — and it’s swiftly gaining traction. KPMG predicts spending on intelligent automation will hit $232 billion by 2025, up from $12.4 billion in 2018. Of course, we’re a long way off from managerial jobs being fully automated, but these findings indicate that automation can — and should — play a bigger role in how we lead the 21st-century workforce. Where Cognitive Automation Fits Into the Workforce At Exela Technologies, our managers wouldn’t be able to support our global workforce of more than 22,000 employees without the help of cognitive automation.