With artificial intelligence developing rapidly, it’s no wonder that AI is being deployed in almost every industry.

With robots doing a lot of the heavy lifting and automating processes and tasks everywhere, the developed world is being thrust into a “touchless” economy, where the heavy lifting is done by AI and humans can use their energy for more creativity and cerebral tasks.

“When we say touchless, it’s identifying those points of where is it rules-based, where can we use business logic to drive some system-based decisions and taking the robot out of the human as some say — and having the humans spend their time on how can I use this information to support the business, get insights out of it, and focus my time on work that’s meaningful and powerful,” said Kyle Rogers (pictured), partner, finance effectiveness, at Clearsulting LLC.

Rogers spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Lisa Martin during the Coupa Inspire event, an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed developing a touchless world, helping clients digitize their businesses, trends in procurement, and how Clearsulting works with some of Coupa Software Inc.’s clients. (* Disclosure below.)

Helping companies prepare for a touchless future

There have been three major emerging trends in procurement in recent years, according to Rogers. The first one is a big focus on operational efficiency, moving toward a touchless world and taking cost out of business. The second trend is increased focus on getting total visibility into spend management.

“Lastly, there’s a new and diverse set of talent in the workforce today. And the last 10 to 20 years we’ve seen digitally native talent graduate into the workforce,” Rogers said. “And what their hopes and desires and needs are in the workplace are very different than the generation before them — so just giving them tools and digital technologies that will attract them but also retain them when they’re here. “

In a digitizing world, more and more clients are reaching out to firms such as Rogers’ as they realize they have no choice but to digitize their data and infrastructure. This isn’t an easy goal to achieve, especially for companies set in more traditional ways, one of which is getting rid of silos, notoriously difficult to dismantle.

“What we find is procurement historically has been a very siloed organization,” Rogers said. “There can be some challenges moving them into a centralized model, but think about the broader business case on rationalizing your supplier base and making sure that you’re getting the most favorable terms with your suppliers.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Coupa Inspire event.

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Coupa Inspire event. Neither Coupa Software Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE