Neeti Mehta Shukla

Class of 1992

What inspired you to launch Automation Anywhere and what was the initial business problem you wanted to solve?

Having worked in many technologydependent industries, my husband and I would often talk about the inefficiencies that limited a company’s ability to innovate and grow. Organisations were bogged down by data and employees were shackled by the manual busywork required to deal with bottlenecks and incompatible systems.

Mihir (CEO, Automation Anywhere) had the idea to build easy and accessible automation that would free business people from their repetitive and mundane tasks to concentrate more on knowledge and value-added work.

We created Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software, a new category that frees up working people’s resources, like time, money, effort and brain power so they can invest those resources in higher-level activities like learning, being creative, solving complex problems, spending more time interacting with customers or developing their businesses. RPA, which uses Artificial Intelligence, allows organisations to automate their processes across all applications, anywhere at a fraction of the cost and time of other traditional automation technologies.

How has RPA technology transformed business and people's lives, and what is a real-world example of its impact?

As well as increasing productivity and driving growth, RPA bots empower people to do more high value work that is more fulfilling and that only humans can do.

For example, we helped the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), whose 1.7 million staff serve 67-plus million patients, come up with unparalleled and extraordinary responses to Covid-19. We started in 2020 by building an accurate, 24x7 reliable ‘Oxygen Bot’ in just 12 hours, that monitors oxygen flow, has saved hundreds of patient lives, and gives more than 1500 hours a year back to nurses and front office staff at Northampton General Hospital. The NHS believes by this year, its hundreds of subsequent automations across dozens of clinical and non-clinical departments will repurpose one million hours of time annually.

In addition to being the Co-Founder of Automation Anywhere, you recently became Social Impact Officer. Why did you take on that role? And can you tell me about the company’s objectives in this area?

Over the last 19 years I have seen the difference our technology has made to people and companies in so many industries, from banking and finance to healthcare and retail. I believed that an area where this technology would be most impactful is in the non-profit space because when they do better, all of society does better. Here is an example which made this dream a reality:

Millions of displaced people inside Ukraine are relying on small local NGOs for humanitarian assistance. NGO Step with Hope’s 100 volunteers were overwhelmed taking manual notes during urgent phone calls and too busy to spend the time required for equally crucial in-person interactions. In its first 10 weeks of operating, the ‘Telegram for Humanity’ bot we built answered 17,500 aid requests from 14,000-plus Ukrainians. Managing up to 400 per cent more aid requests, the bot improved, expedited and scaled the NGO’s processes, giving a projected 500 hours of time back to volunteers for person-to-person assistance.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders, particularly women?

Business leadership and entrepreneurship are two different skill sets. We need entrepreneurs who fall in love with trying to solve the problem and always keep looking for a better solution set. We need business leaders to build the solution set and make it more economical and business-viable. It’s important to nurture both kinds of leadership in a business culture. When advising women executives, I can only share my own experience to say that for many years I fought to make peace with the chaos of work and family life. I loved them both and realised over time that I had to make peace with this feeling of juggling too many things at onceand that the chaos was here to stay. Once I did, the chaos became something I dealt with instead of fighting it.

As someone with extensive experience in RPA, what would you say to people who may be worried about their jobs amidst growing public awareness of AI language models like ChatGPT?

We believe that 95 per cent of the people on the planet will work with AI in the future. It is simply about doing more. Increasing productivity of humans will help us make progress as a society.

History has shown us that when we progress, some jobs will go away but progress also creates more jobs and more wealth. History has also taught us that if we bring people together worldwide who believe something is the right thing to do, decide to concentrate their effort towards a clearly-stated shared goal and leave no one behind, we will succeed.

I believe that AI has a huge upside if we do it right. Just in the last five years, more new jobs than we ever imagined have come to light and AI is bringing forth a whole new wave of entrepreneurship.

How has your education at Bond University influenced your career and success with Automation Anywhere?

I loved my time at Bond! I loved meeting so many new people from different countries, learned so much from them and made so many friends for life. The small class sizes allowed me to make personal connections and learn so much more. The sheer exposure to all these new ways of thinking, understanding and learning opened my mind.

I remember each and every one of my professors and I hope they know what a difference they have made to me. As a member of the Entrepreneurship Club, I was part of a team that represented the University and Australia at the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship competition in the US.

I also started my first business here: Bond Uni-branded floppy disk (yes, they were a thing!) holders that were pretty popular. The Bond University experience evolved many skills that were inside of me that I didn’t even know were there to begin with.

What are your fondest memories from your time at Bond?

I came to Bond University when I was 17 years old, from India. Bond Uni was my beautiful home away from home, where every day was an adventure, whether it was taking a campus stroll, running to submit a report due at 5pm, eating with friends, taking the bus to Broadbeach or Surfers, or hanging out at Don’s on Thursday nights! So many memories that I remember with such fondness and so many friends that to this day I hold close to my heart!