Around a decade ago, as AI gained renewed attention, one of the first areas to receive overinflated focus were business process automation and desktop automation tools that aimed to automate repetitive user interface interactions. These tools, known as Robotic Process Automation , started as humble tools for automating repetitive user interface interactions, like keyboard and mouse actions.
While RPA tools didn’t necessarily promise the capabilities we can now clearly realize in generative AI solutions, the market viewed them as a"gateway" tool to more intelligent capabilities. In part because adding AI capabilities to these otherwise unintelligent tools is becoming easier every day. Organizations are coming to depend on automation tools to increase efficiency but want to avoid the headaches of setting up and managing these tools.
The future, however, is with Level 3 intelligent and adaptive systems. Many of today’s business processes, even with the use of RPA solutions, are utterly absurd. Taking data that is from PDFs, then re-entering that data into an online CRM, ERP, or EHR system, and then performing yet more automation tasks to re-enter that data into yet more systems is software enabled Kafkaesque ridiculousness.