What does the future hold in store for records management? Right now, merely converting to digital records at all is pushing many organizations to the limit of their capacities. But technology never stops moving, and all sorts of interesting innovations are offering the potential to improve or even – in some cases – revolutionize records management in the future. What are some of the most interesting trends hovering on the horizon for records managers to keep an eye on?
1: The Virtualization of Customer Service
This one is well underway, so it might fairly be called a “present” trend. More than ever, people have begun to engage with governments and businesses through electronic means rather than in-person. From telehealth appointments in healthcare to chatbots solving customer service problems to online portals for accessing government services, people increasingly expect to be able to get their needs met with nothing more than an internet connection.
This is, in fact, a big part of why the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is pushing so hard for the government to convert to electronic records. As the volumes of government records proliferate at an increasing pace, it has made it harder for NARA and agencies across the government to keep up with customer service mandates. Making records accessible online can help.
2: Machine Learning (ML)
Machine learning has the potential to transform records management, greatly easing the actual function while enabling human records managers to extract much more value from the information at their disposal.
Simple ML functionality can help to do things like improve searching/discovery of desired records. That alone can improve productivity and lower costs. Then, more advanced ML algorithms could analyze and, as the name implies, learn from huge volumes of information to produce actionable insights hiding in plain sight. Specifically, ML could be used to comb through “unstructured data” (i.e., raw data) and give it structure (e.g., adding accurate metadata) that would make the data accessible and usable to human operators.
Some estimates suggest upwards of 80% of the data at any given organization is unstructured and, thus, virtually useless. That’s a lot of potential untapped value that ML could unlock.
3: Blockchain
Blockchain is a technology that allows discrete blocks of information to be chained together in a way that protects against tampering of the information contained within the chain.
Blockchain could potentially solve some the risks that electronic records management introduces in order to ensure that digital records remain trustworthy. Both NARA and the General Services Administration (GSA) have even studied blockchain to better understand its usefulness in records management. For more information, a white paper from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) offers an excellent technical description of how blockchain works, particularly with regards to records administration.
4: Voice Recognition
Imagine managing records being as simple as using virtual assistants like Siri (Apple), Cortana (Microsoft), or Alexa (Amazon). But even that isn’t the real value of voice recognition in the future of records management. Instead, imagine a world where records can exist or be transformed into multiple formats instantaneously depending on the needs or the user or requestor: podcasts could be converted into text form for long-term archival, text documents could be turned into audio files for visually impaired users, and more.
The truth is, many organizations fail to collect, store, and use a lot of important information because it comes in an audiovisual format that isn’t easily captured or managed. Think of the spoken word portion of meetings and speeches or the multimedia audiovisual components of eLearning courses or presentations. Advanced voice recognition technologies could make it trivial to collect, use, store, and convert record types that are difficult-to-impossible to manage today.
About PSL
PSL is a global outsource provider whose mission is to provide solutions that facilitate the movement of business-critical information between and among government agencies, business enterprises, and their partners. For more information, please visit or email info@penielsolutions.com.