How often do you find yourself starved of time or unable to complete all the tasks on your to-do list? Rather than burning yourself out, working these tasks into the ground, consider task automation.

By entrusting automation to handle essential tasks for you - whether it’s internal approval processes, customer communication procedures, or anything in between - you can unlock precious work hours and resources. Nowadays, organizations face mounting pressure to keep operations moving and optimized while maintaining strict security, and automation is pivotal in helping them achieve that goal.

The minimal face-to-face contact that the COVID-19 pandemic enforced accelerated the shift towards digitization and paved the way for processes to become much more automated and tech-led than before. It’s evolved to such a degree that now, frankly, businesses struggle when they haven’t automated aspects of their operations enough, and those that fail or neglect to do so risk losing their competitive edge. Yet some risks remain when entrusting critical processes to computer algorithms and programs with no human input or intervention.

How can key business decision-makers - particularly in the IT and cyber security spaces - effectively implement automation while keeping the quintessential human touch intact? That’s what this short guide seeks to uncover.

The strategic value of task automation and assistance

Modern enterprises are now beginning to discover that excessive manual handling of tasks - even those that involve computers and software - consumes a vast amount of valuable resources. Not only this, but manual tasks introduce the risk of human error, which is innate in all of us, but over time, this has become a risk that many operations can ill afford to suffer.

According to recent McKinsey statistics, in 60% of occupations, roughly one-third of their responsibilities can be automated. This represents a significant opportunity for organizations to invest in if they need to free up resources and time to scale upwards, expand, and pivot to new markets.

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has sparked some resistance, with discussion about preserving human involvement alongside technological advancement. Virtual assistants have emerged as time- and cost-effective resources for task delegation, offering a proactive and flexible solution for handling ad-hoc requests and tasks, ranging from calendar and email scheduling to data entry, marketing support, and a wealth of others. Their human supervision over key business ensures reliability and appropriate oversight.

Conversely, arguments can be made in favor of automation due to the inherent security benefits it offers, along with its speed of execution compared to humans. The key takeaway is that they both offer value and can complement an organization’s increasing workload as it scales. Therefore, if any organization is to harness the tangible benefits of delegating and automating tasks, it has to be willing to test in siloed areas first before deploying solutions ad infinitum.

Where can organizations automate?

System maintenance and updates

Regular system updates and patch management are crucial for maintaining a robust security posture, but they can quickly feel repetitive and arduous for IT teams. They’re also vital when you consider how 70% of UK businesses ‘expect’ a cyber attack at some point, but even more alarming considering how only half are truly prepared. Patching and updates form a critical defense barrier.

Automated patch management systems can systematically deploy updates across networks, including live and staging or test environments, ensuring consistent security while freeing up IT personnel for more strategic tasks. That said, human oversight remains essential for validating patch compatibility and managing bugs or inconsistencies, or where case integrations or plugins fail. IT and security managers or developers can then roll back updates and patches from backups, to ensure the environment remains accessible while investigations can be carried out.

Compliance reporting and documentation

Workers in numerous industries (such as finance and healthcare) are bound by stringent regulatory compliance measures, which often demand meticulous documentation and reporting. Automation tools can continuously collect and aggregate data pertinent to compliance reports, and they can also generate standardized templates and flag potential violations. While automation handles the heavy lifting of data gathering and initial analysis, security professionals should review findings and make strategic decisions about remediation priorities.

Access management and authentication

Allocating user provisions, revoking access, and instigating impartial reviews are all able to be automated, with many IT practitioners often grateful for these kinds of tasks being entrusted to a computer program. Automated systems can manage routine access changes based on predefined rules while escalating unusual patterns or high-risk changes for human review. This hybrid approach maintains security while reducing the administrative burden on IT teams.

Security incident response

While full automation of incident response isn't feasible, partial automation can significantly enhance response capabilities. Automated systems can perform initial threat detection, gather relevant data, and initiate preliminary containment measures, allowing security teams to focus on analysis and strategic response planning.

How to automate effectively and strategically

The amount and extent of tasks which automation software and AI tools can do are almost impossible to list entirely. There are so many tasks from sector to industry which can be entrusted to automation to free up your valuable time, but it’s always prudent to pick and choose such tasks wisely and methodically.

1. Prioritize tasks

Begin by identifying processes that:

• Occur frequently and consistently
• Follow predictable rules
• Require minimal subjective judgment
• Currently consume significant staff time
• Have clear success metrics
• Are stringent in compliance requirements

2. Determine the level of time efficiency

If you’re going to save hours of time versus seconds, you may need to second-guess your attempt to automate. Consider:

• How many people are required to get this task over the line?
• How much critical thinking or brainstorming is required?
• Can it be integrated with other tools?
• How complicated or multifaceted is the task?
• Does it require emotional intelligence?

3.Define human touchpoints

Clearly designate which aspects of automated processes require human intervention. This can include:

• Critical decision points
• Exception handling
• Regular review and validation
• Emergency override procedures

4. Monitor and measure

Establish clear metrics to evaluate automation effectiveness:

• Time saved through automation
• Error rate reduction
• Security incident trends
• Resource utilization improvements

Balancing automation and human input

Task automation requires organizations to strike a fine balance between efficiency and control. Automation can no doubt handle routine, repetitive and time-consuming operations, but human expertise and experience remain essential and arguably more important than any arbitrary success metric or KPI.

Automated systems may flag anomalies, issues or false positives, but experienced professionals are able to interpret, analyze, and decipher these results and make strategic, informed decisions. Whether it’s regarding risk management or resource allocation, the human mind is irreplaceable compared to any computer or algorithm, given that the latter cannot think critically, contextually or emotively.

Automated processes will undoubtedly encounter complex problems, errors, or unexpected situations, which is where humans have no choice but to intervene. This ensures that an appropriate resolution can be delivered without compromising security, compliance, deadlines, or bottlenecks.

Looking ahead

With automation a prominent investment area primed for growth in the next several years (growing from $193.87 billion in 2024 to $205.11 billion in 2025, a CAGR of 5.8%), organizations must remain adaptable as they strive for efficiency and maintain sufficient human oversight. Long-term automation success hinges not on removing human involvement as much as possible, but on fostering an environment where their effort and time are put to best use while automation handles much of the arduous ‘heavy lifting’.

Whether it’s algorithms aggregating and visualizing large datasets for straightforward human analysis, AI-powered risk assessments with easy-to-read interpretations for stakeholders, or intricate cyber security processes overseen by a hybrid of software and skilled interpreters, the key lies in cultivating healthy and beneficial partnerships between humankind and machines.

Successful automation implementation lies in recognizing it not as a replacement for the human brain, but about augmenting and supporting it in profound and innovative ways, minimizing their task workload and allowing them to harness their full potential.