What is RPA? Robotic Process Automation Tech in 2025

Businesses adopt RPA to transform their back and front-office business operations. However, despite the RPA market’s positive outlook, fanbase¹ , and popularity (Figure 1), business leaders would benefit from learning about RPA technology before investing in it since many RPA projects fail to reach scale.

Figure 1: RPA’s popularity has risen steadily since 2017.

See everything you need to know about RPA:

What is the meaning of RPA?

RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation. It is a generic tool for creating specialized agents, or “bots,” that interact with GUI elements to complete repetitive, rules-based tasks.

Here are different robotic process automation definitions:

• RPA definition from Wikipedia: Robotic process automation, also called robotic automation (abbreviated as RPA or RPAAI) is an emerging form of clerical process automation technology based on the notion of software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers.

• RPA definition from Gartner: Robotic process automation (RPA) is a productivity tool that allows a user to configure one or more scripts to activate specific keystrokes in an automated fashion.

And if you feel like you know enough about RPA, see how to select the right type of RPA vendor. Next, you can explore our data-driven list of RPA solutions.

Benefits of RPA

Manual processes are inefficient, error-prone, and lead to employee dissatisfaction.

According to vendor case studies on RPA benefits, leveraging RPA enables businesses to:

• Increase the speed and reduce errors in customer-facing processes (62%) 
• Improving business results and employee satisfaction by allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks 
• Reduce wage and outsourcing costs (25 – 60%)

RPA’s clear benefits mean RPA implementation is now a question of “how” rather than “why.”

Business benefits of RPA

1. Robotic process automation (RPA) can support a remote workforce & reduce costs

COVID forced businesses to adopt remote work and cloud computing technologies. This increased pressure on IT teams to reduce human workload and operational costs.

RPA software bots can be scheduled to run automatically, with an employee monitoring the progress from a visible dashboard. Moreover, the overall efficiency of RPA can reduce back-office operations costs by 70%.

2. Robotic process automation (RPA) can address system integration gaps

The number of applications a business uses is increasing. Microsoft product suite, for instance, has increased from 3 to 45 since 1990. Connecting legacy systems needs integration. RPA, by leveraging APIs and UI-based automation, can bridge the gaps between legacy systems.

3. Robotic process automation (RPA) can tackle remote desktop automation

Computer vision enables RPA software robots to access the user interface, thus automating processes on remote desktops, which are widely used by Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) providers serving many global enterprises.

4. Robotic process automation (RPA) can automate what could be outsourced

Automation can be a better route than outsourcing because: 

1. 75% of organizations profiled by Deloitte claimed to have maximized cost savings with outsourcing 
2. Outsourcing still requires coordination with an expensive onshore human worker 
3. Outsourcing is dependent on human workers and prone to human errors
4. An outsourced human worker is getting more expensive in real terms because local wages, especially in emerging countries supplying outsourced workers, are increasing in real terms

If your company has a manual process, it can be automated by combining RPA and AI/ML models.

Learn more about the future of RPA and RPA’s evolution.

How does RPA work?

RPA architecture comprises of: 

• Programming language: Users create a script with code-based/low-code programming language to create a script (Figure 3).

• Orchestration modules: A centralized hub where users can schedule, trigger, and monitor the bot.
• The bot: A software automation tool that carries out rule-based commands  
• Interaction capabilities: Users can leverage the bot’s pre-built API connections or configure new ones for interactions with legacy systems, ERPs, web browsers, etc.

RPA vs other automation solutions

RPA’s innovation is UI-based automation, which allows bots to use User Interfaces (UI) like a human. This allows bots to work with

• Legacy applications without APIs
• Remote desktops

Because of these benefits, RPA has become ubiquitous, and most vendors offer an RPA solution as part of their automation offerings. However, the capabilities of such solutions differ significantly. Read more on identifying the right RPA solution for your business.

But generally, RPA is different from other automation solutions in the following ways:

1. Flexibility: RPA is able to automate numerous basic tasks, which are 70% to 80% automated. 
2. Ease of integration: RPA bots do not need to be integrated with most software. Thanks to screen scraping and existing integrations, they can input and evaluate the output of almost all Windows applications.
3. Ease of implementation: Low-code/no-code solutions make RPA implementation easier than before. 
4. Cost: Robots are cheaper than humans! If the same business processes can be automated, there are no cost savings in outsourcing them.

Key features of robotic process automation

Features regarding RPA bot capabilities

• Rule-based execution: RPA software robots execute tasks within a rule-based framework.
  • Upon encountering exceptions, they can issue support tickets and inform a human in the loop.
• Cognitive capabilities: While RPA bots are not “intelligent,” their capabilities can be enhanced via OCR, NLP, and other cognitive automation technologies.

Other RPA features

• Integrations: These allow RPA bots to interact with third-party applications.
• Security: RPA bots need to be secure from a cybersecurity and business compliance perspective. RPA vendors are getting certifications like SOC 2 to highlight the security aspects of their solutions
• Analytics suite: The software robots’ performance can be minutely analyzed via visible dashboards that show their real-time performance data.
• Deployment options: RPA bots can be deployed  on-premises or on the cloud.

Types of robotic process automation (RPA)

Different RPA types can be categorized by their:

1. Programming options: The more advanced the bot ought to be, the more time is needed to program the RPA bot:
   • Code-based RPAs require coding knowledge but are customizable. 
   • No-code and low-code RPAs are easier to program via drag & drop interfaces and screen recording features but lack customizability. 
2. Cognitive capabilities: The integration of AI and RPA will allow the bot to undertake more sophisticated automation tasks. 
3. Usage: Unattended bots require minimal human intervention, while attended bots will need a human-in-the-loop invoking scripts.
   • Learn more about the differences between RPA (unattended) and RDA (attended).

Learn more about the different RPA types.

RPA implementation

RPA implementation requires businesses to:

1. Leveraging process intelligence

Have an end-to-end view of business processes to identify those that need automation the most.

IBM Process Mining can help you choose a suitable process to automate  by employing: 

• Process mining 
• Task mining
• RPA-candidate and gap analysis 
• Digital twin of an organization

IBM Process Mining can create a list of potential and best automated processes. With IBM Process Mining, process automation teams can develop data-driven strategies and RPA projects by simulating scenarios based on real-life process data.

When automation teams find an automatable task and record the user’s typical activities, they can use  Automatic Bot Generation to create an RPA bot to automate that activity.

2. Planning RPA implementation based on best practices

Familiarize yourself with the main steps of RPA implementation:

1. Visibility into processes
2. Improving and simplifying processes
3. Choosing partners
4. Developing solutions
5. Picking task mining/process mining solution
6. Selecting RPA solution
7. Choosing AI/ML to facilitate RPA deployment
8. Testing solution
9. Running a pilot
10. Going live
11. Maintaining RPA implementation

Learn more about the 11 steps of RPA implementation.

3. Avoiding common RPA pitfalls

• Organization pitfalls: Lack of commitment from management/team can delay RPA projects
• Process pitfalls: Attempting to automate processes without fully understanding them
• Technical pitfalls: Choosing a difficult-to-use RPA tool can slow down development efforts

RPA example use cases & applications

RPA’s basic functions

• Launching and using various applications, including
  • Opening emails and attachments
  • Logging into applications
  • Moving files and folders
• Integrating with enterprise tools by
  • Connecting to system APIs
  • Reading and writing to databases
• Augmenting your data by
  • Scraping data from the web, including social media scraping
• Data and document processing
  • Following logical rules such as “if/then” rules
  • Text annotation
  • Making calculations
  • Extracting data from documents
  • Data migration and entry
  • Periodic report preparation and dissemination

RPA use cases/application areas

RPA use cases are abundant. Some industry-wide, basic tasks are: examples that exist in almost all industries are:

• Application processing:
  • RPA bots can:
    • Extract unstructured data from applications
    • Input them into Excel sheets
    • Generate and send reports to designated users and decision-makers from applications
    • Send reports to designated users and decision-makers
• Quote-to-cash:
  • Leveraging NLP, software robots can:
    • Understand documents
    • Generate machine-readable text from unstructured data (e.g., images, pdf)
    • Move data between different systems
• Procure-to-pay: 
  • Software robots are able to:
    • Extract invoice and payment data from multiple systems (e.g., vendor emails, CRM)
    • Validate data against different vendor sources (e.g., contract)

There are also numerous industry processes or business processes (e.g., marketing, sales) that can be automated with RPA.

Industries that are being transformed by RPA 

RPA can have a greater impact in some industries than in others.

For instance, RPA software can help achieve significant savings and greater customer satisfaction increases in: 

• Branches 
• Call centers 
• Back office automation

Where legacy systems are used a lot, and the repetitive tasks are aplenty. 

So, RPA implementation is useful in the following industries:

• RPA in finance, banking, and insurance
• Government and healthcare
• Real estate

RPA case studies

Different industries have different processes. It’s not easy to list all industry-specific automatable functions. Explore our sortable list of RPA case studies so you can see the processes that companies in your specific industry automate.

Popular RPA tools

One way to answer this question is by focusing on the best RPA provider in terms of funding and popularity. Popular RPA tools include:

• IBM
• UiPath
• Automation Anywhere

But that premise is flawed, as the best RPA tool is the one that is within your budget and meets your needs. Check our article with 7 steps on how to choose the best RPA tool & vendor for your business.

RPA vs. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is an umbrella term for all technologies that mimic human intelligence. RPA bots aren’t intelligent; they only replicate human actions. 

So, artificial intelligence is different from RPA in that: 

• Artificial intelligence tries to find ways to solve an issue.
• RPA follows rule-based orders to solve an issue.

For instance, a business might get different emails with varying levels of urgency that need to be sorted, categorized, and responded to. Artificial intelligence technologies such as NLP and OCR can read the content of emails, organize them, and selectively respond to them. 

RPA can then store this data in the right databases and update relevant systems. 

This is how robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) can function together.

RPA & hyperautomation

Hyperautomation is the application of RPA (at the center) with artificial intelligence, ML, process mining, and other emerging technologies to automate all automatable business functions.

So, hyperautomation expands RPA’s applicability to: 

• Operational decision making
• Identifying patterns
• Making predictions
• Advanced analytics, and more.

RPA alternatives

Robotic process automation technology is not the only way to automate processes that cut across numerous systems. Before RPA, companies relied on 3 approaches (Figure 4):

Robotic process automation technology is not the only way to automate processes that cut across numerous systems. 

The main RPA alternative are (Figure 4): 

1. IT transformation:  Structural changes to a company’s IT infrastructure to improve its safety, performance, agility, etc.
2. BPMS: A strategy for figuring out business process inefficiencies and eliminating them.
   • Explore what BPMS is and what BPMS’s benefits are. 
3. Outsourcing: Paying an outside (third-party specialist) company to perform a company’s core business processes. 

What are RPA consultants?

After choosing the automation software your company needs, you must decide whether your team has the capacity and experience to complete the automation.

If your team does not:

• Have the time/experience to set up RPA bots
• Know the technical specifications RPA technology
• Have access to structured, unique data to fuel automation 

Leverage an artificial intelligence consultant like Accenture or Infosys. These providers offer RPA setup support for enterprises that would like to work with a hands-on partner while rolling out their software robots. 

But if you are working for a large enterprise that will use RPA to automate numerous processes, it will eventually need to build its own RPA deployment capabilities. We are seeing companies set up RPA Centers of Excellence and other automation technologies. For example, UBS in the UK has an RPA center of excellence led by Richard Wiggs. This is a worthwhile investment for large companies.

For more, read our in-depth article on RPA consulting to learn about 150+ leading RPA consultants and information on their geographic coverage and the RPA tools they use.

If you are working at RPA consultants, we highlight cost-effective technology partners for RPA consultants in this whitepaper. Vendors providing commercial bots for less than $2,000/bot enable RPA consultants to offer their services to price-conscious buyers as well:

FAQ

External Links

• 1. Reddit - Dive into anything.
• 2. “Global Wage Report 2020“. Retrieved October 26, 2023