Automation Anywhere intros new generative AI tools
The new RPA tools come several months after the vendor added some initial GenAI capabilities to its platform and as vendors capitalize on the excitement about the AI technology.
Robotic process automation vendor Automation Anywhere on Tuesday unveiled new generative AI capabilities for its Automation Success Platform after introducing a group of similar features in June.
At its Imagine 2023 user conference, the vendor unveiled Autopilot and Automation Co-Pilot for Automators. Both are expected to become generally available in the first half of next year.
The new tools join the vendor's existing set of generative AI-based Automation Co-Pilots for business users and automators.
New capabilities
Autopilot enables users to go from process discovery to automation quickly using generative AI. Automation Co-Pilot for Automators enables citizen and professional developers to create automations with natural language.
The vendor also introduced more new tools, including features for automation AI governance such as model selection, data privacy controls, and monitoring and audit.
Model selection enables users to manage generative AI models across different providers. Data privacy controls provide an extra layer of protection for enterprises, including data masking capabilities. Monitoring and audit lets users monitor model performance and check for data privacy violations.
GenAI and RPA
Automation Anywhere's new offerings are for organizations that have a good handle on ways robotic process automation (RPA) works for them, but need help "accelerating rollout, diversifying the teams who can manage it and ... maintaining best practices," said Deep Analysis analyst Matt Mullen.
"That's certainly part of the productivity puzzle, but not all of it," Mullen continued. "Where we see organizations struggle is earlier in the value chain: analyzing processes and making decisions as to which make good candidates to be automated in the first place. Those upstream choices have to be made right if you stand to see any benefits from automation downstream."
Most organizations have little to no governance for AI-related technology.
Alan Pelz-SharpeAnalyst and founder, Deep Analysis
Capabilities such as Autopilot can reduce some complexities surrounding automation. However, customers are still skeptical about whether they can trust generative AI and whether it's worth investing in, according to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, analyst and founder of Deep Analysis.
"GenAI can undoubtedly play a role in speeding up automation development cycles," Pelz-Sharpe said. "However, what typically slows such projects is a lack of thorough business analysis rather than configuring bots or other automation tools."
Automation Anywhere's governance capabilities address a big need among organizations, he added. "Most organizations have little to no governance for AI-related technology," Pelz-Sharpe said.
Challenges for enterprises
Governance tools such as the ones offered by Automation Anywhere are a prerequisite to deploying AI in the enterprise, according to RPA2AI Research analyst Kashyap Kompella.
However, enterprises using RPA and generative AI technology will still face some nontechnology challenges related to scaling enterprise automation, Kompella said. These challenges include dealing with isolated data sources and settling for partial automation.
"GenAI or no GenAI, these bottlenecks will continue to exist," he added.
While generative AI is bound to pop up in the various parts of the enterprise software stack, including marketing automation, customer support, enterprise resource planning and document management, customers using it successfully will create an enterprise-wide generative AI strategy rather than a piecemeal approach, Kompella said.
Esther Ajao is a TechTarget Editorial news writer covering artificial intelligence software and systems.
