New Releases from Uipath and Automation Anywhere in Search of Advanced Automation

At Practia we have been working hard on the concept of Hyperautomation using more technologies integrated with RPA together with the identification of more refined business opportunities, using automation not only to replace manual activities, but also to create more value and leverage digitalization in more complex value chains. We have long insisted on increasing decentralized and responsible automation from trained end users and local teams. Not coincidentally, we created an area focused only on RPA training for our customers.

RPA Market Forecast to Grow at Double-Digit Rates Through 2024 Despite Economic Pressures from COVID-19

Global robotic process automation (RPA) software revenue is projected to reach $1.89 billion in 2021, an increase of 19.5% from 2020, according to the latest forecast from Gartner, Inc. Despite economic pressures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the RPA market is still expected to grow at double-digit rates through 2024.

Worldwide RPA software revenue is expected to reach $1.58 billion in 2020, an increase of 11.9% from 2019. Through 2020, average RPA prices are expected to decrease 10% to 15%, with annual 5% to 10% decreases expected in 2021 and 2022, creating strong downward pricing pressure.

Considering this scenario, I was aware of two important events of the two main RPA market tools, Uipath and Automation Anywhere: the presentation of the new release 20.10 of the Uipath platform under the theme Advancing the Automation Platform and also the launch of AARI (Automation Anywhere Robotic Interface), a intelligent digital assistant launched by Automation Anywhere in October, 2020. Let's summarize some perceptions below, highlighting the main changes that mainly impact the companies' strategy regarding automation.

I can anticipate that I am happy for the consistency and alignment of the news that I saw with what we think as a strategy and focus for RPA for our clients, based on Practia's methodology for Hyperautomation.

"It is also possible to note that the market-leading tools want to go beyond RPA allowing for better usability, governance and more robust and intelligent developments."

UIPATH NEW RELEASE

Uipath has been acting strongly on the Hyperautomation axis and brought to the table the discussion about the automation of more complex processes, in addition to the simple mimicry of manual and repetitive activities. According to Uipath itself, there are three main approaches that should be used to promote intelligent, scaled automation that I highlight below.

Artificial intelligence

First, they highlight the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for the automation of robotic processes (RPA) with the addition of three new features:

Launch of On-Premises support for AI Fabric and UiPath Document Understanding. This means that companies that prefer to keep sensitive files in their own data centers can now take advantage of the functionality of both applications on their own servers.

More predefined models for AI Fabric and Document Understanding were launched, which promises to accelerate the adoption of these solutions. In the UiPath Document Understanding, examples were presented for processes such as purchase orders, account management and invoices for countries such as Japan, Australia and India. At AI Fabric, predefined models were presented for image analysis and language analysis, comprehension and translation, for example.

It was also commented on the continuous model retraining that promises to improve the results of the analyzes over time. In theory, this means that models can get better and better based on real-world data and documents that exist in processes.

User Interaction

The second approach is about increasing human interaction in the automation flow (Human into the Loop) when necessary for validation, approval and exception handling. These features are handled within the Action Center.

Now UiPath Action Center has a new interface separate from UiPath Orchestrator and adapted more for the end user with the ability to assign dynamic tasks. Users can trigger stand-alone automations with forms (including file uploads) using the new feature. UiPath Process Mining has also been integrated so that process alerts reach the Action Center inbox. It looks like a more friendly and centralized environment for managing user information and actions.

Chatbots

The third approach is focused on chatbots. An evolution of the integration of the Druid company solutions with greater interaction with the UiPath Robots was presented, bringing together RPA and AI conversation in a more intuitive way.

Governance

There was also a lot of discussion about governance, which was already central to the Automation Hub, which already created an initial environment for demand management and monitoring of some COE indicators.

I noticed interesting integrations via API with Jira and Workday, as well as an evolution in UiPath Task Capture to document your processes more easily. The latest version of Task Capture includes an installer so you can share it with your entire organization, expanding and reinforcing Uipath's goal with the concept of decentralized automation via Citizen Developers.

As a good practice, we have strongly insisted on the establishment of upstream criteria and controls before the start of automation from a Definition of Ready after the making of the SDD.

In this sense, it was informed that additional controls and locks to Studio were implemented: rules and restrictions that can be put in place to control which applications or sites can be automated. Additionally, a critical path was created that forces automation to pass through an analyzer before it is authorized for publication or execution.

Of course, intelligence is needed in these restrictions and business rules so that it doesn't become a bottleneck to decentralized development, but they seem interesting features to reassure the infrastructure, applications and information security teams when we discuss putting RPA in the hands of end users.

In this new version, to help the CoE run its automation program at scale, UiPath Orchestrator appears to simplify RPA management at scale. The change shown is the new user experience that should make it easier to manage more users and entities.

Finally, UiPath Process Mining received special attention as a tool that allows the discovery of inefficiencies and bottlenecks that affect business growth and determine automation opportunities based on a more refined and planned evaluation. Process Mining is seen as an important lever for identifying, monitoring and optimizing processes.

AUTOMATION ANYWHERE NEW RELEASE

Automation Anywhere is very proud of its cloud platform that allows for more scalable and less invasive growth from less infrastructure dependency. In addition, he has been working hard on the identification and governance of automation from Discovery Bots, Bot Insights and Analytics.

I would like to highlight, however, the launch of AARI (Automation Anywhere Robotic Interface), an intelligent digital assistant available through the Enterprise A2019 platform. According to Automation Anywhere, AARI makes it easy for anyone to participate in the automation of daily business tasks, through friendly user interfaces.

According to examples from the company itself, as well as the popular digital assistants Siri and Alexa, AARI will allow a more simplified interaction by users with robots allowing them to simplify their activities, improve collaboration between teams and provide the best customer service.

It is also an important strategy in which automations increasingly leave the Back-Office and migrate to relevant operations oriented to users and end customers, also remembering Microsoft's strategy with Power Automate and Microsoft Lists. The RPA technology, from these companies, wants to occupy spaces.

"I understand that these new releases are consistent with the strategy of the leading platforms in the market, proposing to go beyond basic automation, as established by Gartner, echoing the mantras of usability, advanced automation, work assistants and hyperautomation."

These launches present an important effort in new functionalities that will increasingly allow decentralized automation in the hands of end users along with the identification of more advanced opportunities integrated with technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots. RPA wants and will leave the back-office and the hand of a few developers, still trying to reassure the technical areas on how to guarantee governance, access levels and visibility of earnings.

It is important and necessary that companies have technical and consultative support to build and revise their digitization strategy in light of this evolution and also to absorb such an evolution that occurs in a short period of time while many of them are still starting their digitization journey with quite difficult, even with local and modest initiatives.

Gilberto Strafacci Neto

Country Manager at Practia Brasil (www.practiaglobal.com.br) and Senior Partner at Setec Consulting Group (www.setecnet.com.br). Master Business Essentials CORe Program at Harvard Business School, MBA in Leadership and Innovation, Mechanical Engineer at Polytechnic School of the University of S?o Paulo, Master Black Belt, Agile Coach, Design Thinker, Manager 3.0, Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt by American Society for Quality (ASQ) and Certified Scrum Master by the Scrum Alliance and Certified Facilitator LEGO? SERIOUS PLAY? (See PROFILE).