Both RPA and AI have been gaining popularity among entrepreneurs for the last decade, especially AI, which has become a synonym for almost every tech innovation that's been made since 2010. Automation and intelligence associated with the same idea of simply 'things get done without people' but in two different ways.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) mimics the actions of a human working in different apps and platforms using a keyboard and a mouse. It is the version of your perfect employee that accurately performs repetitive tasks. RPA strictly follows an algorithm created by people for it to execute assignments. Artificial Intelligence, on the other hand, works with enormous volumes of data, which it converts into actionable insights by detecting any underlying patterns and connections.
In other words, RPA mimics people's actions, while AI strives to replicate the human decision-making process. It is like a thinker VS doer.
Another difference between RPA and AI lies in their focus.
RPA is process-driven — it automates routine, rule-based processes that generally require interaction with multiple IT systems simultaneously. Successful RPA implementation requires choosing processes for automation.
Check out one of earlier #RPA101 articles where we discussed
Which processes to automate?
AI focuses on good-quality data. It has to have data to train Machine Learning algorithms to ensure these samples are of good quality, making sure the output is representative of the data set, among others.
After that, the task is to select an appropriate ML algorithm, and then train the algorithm sufficiently so that it can recognize new similar documents faster and more accurately than a human could.
It is not that one system is better than the other. Each has it's specific use cases.
Shortly we will probably see cognitive RPA which will be much closer to the idea of AI, but for now RPA and AI are two different stages of automation not only to classify them but also to understand which is the best for a particular project
If you're considering the implementation of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) into your workflow with a fully remote team, either because of the current COVID-19 pandemic or any other reasons - we are here to support you. Reach out to our automation experts for personal discussion.