Key Insight

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) enables businesses to automate certain tasks and processes within offices, allowing employees to spend time on higher-value work.

Why It Matters

Despite fears that bots are congesting the internet and causing mayhem on social media, they can also automate tasks and applications to save businesses’ resources and drive better efficiencies. RPA can be installed in just about any kind of device and can work independently or as part of a company’s cloud environment.

Examples

Amazon uses RPA to sift through resumes before prioritizing top candidates for review. Hospitals use RPA such as UiPath, which automates the process of copying patient data between files and electronic patient records. In banking, Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere help staff process repetitive data entry work. The availability of artificial intelligence tools and frameworks now let companies digitally automate even more of their functions.

What’s Next

RPA has the potential to transform the future of work, which is why so many organizations are researching how to integrate it into their workflows and systems. In January 2020, the U.S. government published a playbook for federal agencies that provides guidance on how to initiate a new RPA program. If the government deployed RPA at scale and was able to eliminate 20 hours of workload per employee, the capacity would be worth $3 billion, according to government estimates.

The Impact

RPA will eventually augment staff and shift their productivity into higher gear, especially as adjacent fields like natural language processing advance. Companies could then make better real-time predictive decisions in a host of different areas, from customer service to cost savings.

Watchlist

Amazon, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Google, IBM, Kofax, Kryon, Microsoft, Nice Robotic Automation, Salesforce, UiPath, WorkFusion.