Jun 13, 2017 - Technology

In your next job, you may need to know how to make a bot

Steve LeVine

Workers may soon be expected to know how make "bots" that automate parts of their own jobs, according to Deloitte Consulting.

Marc Mancher runs a Deloitte team that trains government employees to create "software bots" that automatically do paperwork like mass invoicing. He told Axios that, as a carryover, members of his staff now create bots that streamline their own jobs, and that that will become a standard skill in the workforce in the near-term.

"If you could automate those repetitive tasks in your job, would you? Yes, of course, you would," he said. "As this technology becomes more widely adopted, we think it's likely to become 'standard issue' on employees' computers. People can identify tasks for automation, train their own bots, and then focus more on value-add type of work."

How this will work: Some workers will need to know how to write code from scratch, but most will manage this transition without that skill. Instead, to the degree that a demonstration of bot-making at Deloitte's Arlington, Virginia, office is a window into this future, cookie-cutter bot-making businesses are likely to arise. They will make off-the-shelf bot-makers. So that turning those into actual working bots that begin to churn through your routine paperwork could require only a level or two of more skill than needed today to create an Excel spreadsheet.

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In your next job, you may need to know how to make a bot

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