Robotic process automation (RPA) software enables businesses to automate repetitive, rules-based tasks by deploying software “bots" that mimic human interactions with digital systems. RPA helps organizations save time, reduce costs, and improve accuracy by minimizing the need for employees to complete manual, tedious processes.
Modern RPA platforms provide low-code or no-code tools so business users and IT teams alike can design automation workflows without advanced programming skills. Bots can operate in attended mode (assisting humans in real time) or unattended mode (running independently in the background). Many RPA solutions now embed artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities such as document understanding, computer vision, and natural language processing (NLP), thereby extending automation to more complex, semi-structured tasks.
Organizations use RPA across departments like finance, HR, customer service, supply chain, and IT to streamline data entry, form filling, report generation, and other repetitive digital tasks. By centralizing orchestration and bot management, RPA platforms allow enterprises to scale automation and integrate it with broader initiatives in intelligent automation and digital transformation.
Unlike workload automation(WLA) software, which connects programmatically to IT systems for back-end job scheduling, RPA operates at the user interface level — entering data, clicking buttons, and navigating applications just like a human would. Similarly, while business process management (BPM) software focuses on designing and optimizing company-wide workflows and governance, RPA is built for task execution within specific processes.
To qualify for inclusion in the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) category, a product must:
Deploy bots capable of interacting with third-party applications and systems at the user-interface level
Provide workflow creation tools (e.g., low-code or no-code designers, drag-and-drop builders, or action recording)
Automate structured, rules-based digital tasks with or without human involvement (attended and unattended automation)
Offer centralized management, governance, and monitoring of deployed bots
