In recent years robotic process automation<\/a> (RPA) has become mainstream, enabling organizations to free their staff from rote, manual processing. At the same time, machine learning<\/a> (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) have become more accessible with the advent of off-the-shelf tools, low-code environments, and simplified frameworks.<\/p>\n Each of these technologies is independently reshaping the way businesses operate and compete. Blending them together can have even greater impacts. The resulting capability comprises some of what\u2019s referred to as hyperautomation<\/a>. That sounds amazing, but it\u2019s not always clear what hyperautomation means or how to go about combining RPA and AI into high-impact, fully automated solutions. In some cases, organizations have launched an RPA program but struggle to incorporate more advanced functionality.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, how do you get from RPA to AI and beyond?<\/p>\n RPA and AI have a lot in common, like:<\/p>\n That said, they also work in distinct ways to solve different challenges. RPA excels at simple, structured and objective tasks. AI is meant for subjectivity, decision making and unstructured actions. In fact, the beauty of these two tools in concert is how well they complement each other towards a common goal.<\/p>\n But what does this have to do with peanut butter cups? Consider the key ingredients: chocolate and peanut butter. Both are delicious on their own, but for different reasons. The combination is tasty, immensely popular and preferred by most to either of the individual components. I think you see where this is going.<\/p>\n RPA plus AI is the peanut butter cup of process automation. Instead of addressing parts of a process with a particular tool, you combine tools to automate more of the process and get closer to no-touch, end-to-end automation.<\/strong> Not only do more steps get automated, but RPA and AI help enable each other to integrate more seamlessly. In other words, the result is greater than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n To help demonstrate, let\u2019s consider a real-world process and show how it progresses with automation.<\/p>\n In our finance department, we receive invoices from vendors that we need to capture, enter into our Enterprise Resource Planning<\/a> (ERP) system and process. The invoices are always PDF files but don\u2019t have a consistent format or data and may be scanned or handwritten. With so much variation in the data and presentation, a traditional integration isn\u2019t possible. We have to manually view each file then hand-key them into our system, which is mundane, time-consuming and inefficient. We can do better!<\/p>\nThe Peanut Butter Cup Analogy for Hyperautomation<\/h2>\n
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A Practical Example for Hyperautomation<\/h2>\n
RPA: Start with the Basics<\/h3>\n