LEADERS' OUTLOOK
Automation and Autonomy in the Future
BY OLA ROLLÉN
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President & CEO, Hexagon AB
ANNUAL EDITION / JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022
n looking ahead to 2031, we first need to look back at digital transformation over the last 20 years. It’s fascinating to see the number of consumer services that have been digitalized. The big developments in the last 20 years started with the internet and today we have entire catalogs of our favorite music and movies online. There has been a great deal of change in retail too. Companies like Amazon deliver groceries to one’s doorstep within two hours. And in Germany, Mercedes has permission to run autonomous vehicles across the country.
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So, what’s going to happen in the next 10-15 years? The changes in retail are going to come to business eventually. That’s why it’s important to talk about autonomy as opposed to automation. Autonomy is about automating workflows while also removing the human element from the workflow. For example, fatalities and severe injuries related to traffic accidents every year are in the millions. These numbers can be reduced. Humans aren’t particularly good at doing repetitive tasks, so autonomous cars are the future. But autonomy is to do with much more than driving cars. Autonomous workflows have
