A recent survey from Bain & Company of nearly 800 executives worldwide estimated that the number of companies scaling up such automation technologies is set to double over the next two years — and that coronavirus will almost certainly accelerate that timeline.

• Businesses are already using automated bots to respond to the pandemic, says Michael Heric, the leader of Bain's Automation Center of Excellence and a co-author of the report. That includes processing testing kits and helping with SBA loan applications.
• "We see a lot of clients saying that remote work during the pandemic demonstrates that some of this activity should be automated as well," says Heric.