Robotic automation will evolve when organizations combine agentic AI with older technology to re-engineer business processes.
The future of robotic process automation is being debated by IT leaders and experts. Some IT leaders predict that AI agents with greater autonomy and power will eventually replace the AI precursor technology that has been around for two decades. Others predict that AI agents will work in conjunction with RPA to achieve new levels automation. RPA will be reconsidered as organizations deploy agents and next-generation AI tools. Vendors and IT leaders may be able to create new ways to automate business processes using RPA and AI agents.
Some IT leaders believe that RPA will continue to thrive, as it has carved out an important enterprise niche.
Arjun Bali, Rocket Mortgage’s staff data scientist, says that RPA is still relevant in automating repetitive, rule-based tasks. “It’s not being replaced yet, but augmented by AI, allowing smarter decisions to be made within workflows.”
Adaptable vs. Cost
While AI-powered agents offer a powerful and adaptable approach to automation, RPA with its predictable results still has a role, says
Shae Khan (19459025) is an AI research scientist in the IBM MIT AI Lab.
AI may eventually replace certain RPA deployments. However, RPA is cheaper, faster, and less error-prone than most AI tools.
Nevertheless, he says, AI will be used by many organizations to augment and, in some cases replace traditional RPA. AI agents will be used for complex and dynamic tasks requiring decision-making abilities, while RPA is still used for repetitive rule-based processes.
“Unlike RPA robots that follow predefined rule sets, AI agents learn from data and make decisions, adapting to changing business logic,” Khan states. “AI agents can be used for more flexible tasks, such as customer interaction, fraud detection, or predictive analytics. Hyperautomation will be adopted by many organizations, which combines RPA and AI to automate business process.
He says that RPA will most likely be integrated into AI-powered workflows, rather than being used as a standalone solution.
RPA growth is still happening
RPA providers such as UiPath, who have added AI agents to their product portfolios, still see RPA as a viable technology. UiPath is a leading provider of robotic process automation (RPA) software.
A reportpublished in January asserts that agents will connect with RPA processes due to the efficiency and reliability older technology. IDC estimates that RPA expenditures will double between 2024-2028, reaching $8.2 billion.
UiPath customers are still heavily dependent on RPA.
Chris Radich, CTO of the public sector at the automation provider. He says that while there is a growing narrative that AI will replace RPA in the future, those who make this prediction do not understand the fundamental differences between the two technologies.
He says that RPA is not dying, but rather evolving. “We’ve tried a variety of AI solutions for automation, but RPA is the only one that works consistently, without exceptions or interpretations.” Radich says that “today, we build different RPA workflows for various scenarios.” “Tomorrow, our agentic capabilities will allow an agent to evaluate an incoming request, and determine if it requires RPA for data processing or API calls for system interfaces, or a human handoff for complicated decisions.
Organizations need an orchestration strategy to solve the major issue of automation sprawl.
We have dozens RPA bots and various API integrations. We also have manual processes to handle exceptions,” says he. “An orchestrating AI could manage this complexity, by understanding the full spectrum of available capabilities and directing work appropriately.”
Foundation layer
At the moment, RPA is most commonly used in structured back-office operations, such as processing of invoices, reconciling information, and generating reports.
Lei Gao , CTO at conversational AI platform vendor SleekFlow.
He adds, “Those [processes] won’t disappear overnight, especially in sectors with a heavy legacy.” “But we’ll continue to see a steady decrease in new RPA deployments for these tasks as more businesses adopt AI first workflows.” He claims that RPA will be a foundation layer, still valuable but becoming increasingly invisible as it is embedded into AI-powered orchestration system.
Gao, a CIO and other IT leaders, says that they need to pay attention because the growing relationship between AI, RPA, and automation infrastructure will affect maintenance, adaptability and control. “The ability of adapting creates new opportunities — but also tradeoffs,” says Gao. “AI agents can add new levels to abstraction, which could make behavior more difficult for users to understand or debug, especially in regulated domains, where it is important to be able to explain decisions made.”
Gao says that a shift to a more AI powered automation environment will require CIOs with deep domain knowledge as well as sound strategic judgment.
The higher-level question, he says, is “What degree of automation and adaptation do we want in our automation layer? And what transparency are you willing to sacrifice to gain speed and scale?” “The shift doesn’t just mean switching from one set to another of tools. It’s about rethinking automation philosophy for the age AI.”
