13 November 2019
Life is Easier with Robotic Process Automation
Robotic process automation (RPA) has actually been around for over a decade. The “old” RPA solutions were probably revolutionary at that time, but for the current demand for speed and sophistication across different departments in a company, those old ways could only give temporary solutions.
Basically RPA can remove any rote and repetitive work, but the old ways couldn’t teach the robotic software to assess something to reach a decision, nor to work together with other people (or systems). Therefore, the automation often stops anyway when it requires a human decision or when it needs input from another division.
RPA vendor, UIPath, has recently held its annual conference in Las Vegas. UIPath is well on its way to give us the next generation of RPA: moving away from the early bot-centric model, but instead allowing organizations to build automation applications that can break the barriers between divisions, so bots and people can cooperate better. Furthermore, the introduction of AI Fabric enhances machine learning so our “robots” can now “think” on their own to make decisions and judgements, and automatically act on those.
For example, a financial institution has developed a machine learning algorithm for credit review and approval. Using UIPath’s AI Fabric, the company is now able to easily add this automated decision into a loan application review process.
Over the next decade, all companies should rethink all processes—what gets done, by whom, and when to automate or apply AI. The next generation RPA will make brand new options possible.
