What is robotic process automation (RPA?)
Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of software robots to perform repetitive tasks previously done by humans.
Most RPA tools run on individual workstations and are trained to perform rote tasks like moving rows of data from a database to a spreadsheet. While individual bots toil away at simple tasks, the gains can add up. RPA can play a major role in helping an organization run more efficiently as part of a broader Business Process Management (BPM) strategy.
How does RPA relate to artificial intelligence (AI)?
An RPA software robot might feel akin to AI, and the field is changing rapidly to integrate more AI capabilities into RPA. But today, most RPA bots lack a quality associated with AI: the ability to learn and improve over time.-.-
RPA bots are trained to follow a series of repetitive, rules-based tasks, and generally do not learn as they go. If something about the automated task changes, a typical RPA bot won’t be able to figure it out and will need to be retrained.
However, there are scenarios where AI and RPA complement each other. An example would be using a deep neural network for image recognition at a decision point in an RPA process. RPA vendors are increasingly offering solutions that attempt to converge the decision-making abilities of AI with the productivity improvements of RPA.