In this episode of the Hybrid Cloud Forecast series, Andre and Jerry Cuomo, IBM Fellow, VP & CTO AI Automation, the "founding father" of WebSphere technologies talk about how to automate the hybrid cloud.  They discuss the fact that clouds are evolving with personality and specialty akin to specialized grocery stores. Andre and Jerry talk about the process of automation, how its mostly looked upon as a closed loop system but is really a two step dance - step one: eliminate mundane repetitive tasks to reduce errors and step two: augment skills to upskill employees.  They discuss the reasons for acceleration of automation,  everything is online now, for example: online businesses, telemedicine, autonomous cars, and technology in the form of AI which complements the digital ability of the cloud and bring intelligence to the table. They discuss how automation used to be a means to an end, but now is an end in itself and for digital businesses to succeed they need to not just automate, but optimize processes. 
Art by Matt Cardinal.