Rachael Martin, mission chief at the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), said the center is working to keep at pace with industry when it comes to implementing and scaling robotic process automation, Nextgov reported Thursday.
Martin told attendees at an Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology webinar that while some agencies have deployed a robust RPA framework, JAIC also needs to develop a shared services model to match strategies used in the private sector.
She added that the early use of RPA has been “driven by necessity” to perform administrative tasks such as financial management and contracting procedures. Integrating RPA into agencies’ varying cloud infrastructures remains a challenge for the Department of Defense component, according to Martin.
“We’re finding that people are defaulting to desktop applications because it’s easier than having to go through the whole process of standing up cloud infrastructure to host the software,” she said. “I think in the long-term that is going to be what prevents us from scaling.”
