Category Archives: Automation

UiPath came seemingly out of nowhere in the last several years, going public last year in a successful IPO during which it raised more than $527 million. It raised $2 billion in private money prior to that with its final private valuation coming in at an amazing $35 billion. UiPath CEO Daniel Dines will be joining us on a panel to discuss automation at TC Sessions: SaaS on October 27th.

The company has been able to capture all this investor attention doing something called robotic process automation (RPA), which provides a way to automate a series of highly mundane tasks. It has become quite popular, especially to help bring a level of automation to legacy systems that might not be able to handle more modern approaches to automation involving artificial intelligence and machine learning. In 2019 Gartner found that RPA was the fastest growing category in enterprise software.

In point of fact, UiPath didnt actually come out of nowhere. It was founded in 2005 as a consulting company and transitioned to software over the years. The company took its first VC funding, a modest $1.5 million seed round, in 2015, according to Crunchbase data.

As RPA found its market, the startup began to take off, raising gobs of money, including a $568 million round in April 2019 and $750 million in its final private raise in February 2021.

Dines will be appearing on a panel discussing the role of automation in the enterprise. Certainly, the pandemic drove home the need for increased automation as masses of office workers moved to work from home, a trend that is likely to continue even after the pandemic slows.

As the RPA market leader, he is uniquely positioned to discuss how this software and other similar types will evolve in the coming years and how it could combine with related trends like no-code and process mapping. Dines will be joined on the panel by investor Laela Sturdy from CapitalG and ServiceNows Dave Wright, where they will discuss the state of the automation market, why its so hot and where the next opportunities could be.

In addition to our discussion with Dines, the conference will also include Databricks Ali Ghodsi, Salesforces Kathy Baxter and Puppets Abby Kearns, as well as investors Casey Aylward and Sarah Guo, among others. We hope youll join us. Its going to be a stimulating day.

Buy your pass now to save up to $100. We cant wait to see you in October!

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UiPath CEO Daniel Dines is coming to TC Sessions: SaaS to talk RPA and automation - TechCrunch

What You Should Know:

78 percent of health systems are currently using or are in the process of implementing automation in their revenue cycle operations, according to recent survey results from AKASA, a South San Francisco-based revenue cycle management automation company. The key findings signal automation in healthcare is no longer an emerging trend but is mission-critical for driving efficiency and cost-effectiveness in revenue cycle operations.

According to the survey, health systems (versus hospitals) are statistically more likely to be currently using or implementing automation tools in their revenue cycle operations. Survey results also show that as the size of the organization increases so does their use of automation tools with the largest healthcare providers, those with $1B $10B net patient revenues, most actively using or implementing these tools.

COVID-19 Impact on Revenue Cycle

COVID-19 has placed many healthcare organizations under intense cash-flow pressure and created volatile claim volumes and workloads for revenue cycle teams. These dynamics are driving more revenue cycle leaders to look to automation to provide flexibility and resiliency in their operations while minimizing their organizations cost to collect. The survey also found that 37% of organizations currently not using automation plan to do so this year or sometime in 2022.

Increase Focus of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Commissioned by AKASA, the survey fielded responses from nearly 400 chief financial officers and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems across the United States through the Healthcare Financial Management Associations (HFMA) Pulse Survey program between May 27, 2021 and June 28, 2021.

Results demonstrate that the increasing focus on digital transformation efforts in healthcare has driven the adoption of automation to help manage claims, billing and reimbursement processes. The majority of health systems and hospitals, (more than 66 percent) say they are now using or implementing automation in their revenue cycle operations.

The findings underscore that automation serves as a backbone for healthcare financial leaders looking to streamline complex staff workflows, said Malinka Walaliyadde, co-founder and CEO of AKASA. The opportunity going forward for provider organizations is to expand their ambitions and scope for automation. Instead of identifying dozens of small, discrete use-cases and never getting past the first few due to high setup and maintenance costs, leaders should consider solutions that can be deployed rapidly with minimal disruption. The goal is foundational, end-to-end automation for entire functions, driving giant leaps in efficiency.

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Provider Adoption of Automated Revenue Cycle Operations On The Rise - HIT Consultant

Advertisers need to come together with media, measurement and ad-tech companies to support the growth in advanced TV. Their partnerships will lead to greater automation and better outcomes that drive more investment in advertising as linear TV and digital video converge.

Kevin Lemberg, head of partnerships for advertising solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions

There has to be some sort of unification and some sort of common language and goals between the partners within a solution or technology that were offering out to the industry, he said. Partnerships are going to be very important to round out the technology offering and the solutions for the industry in order for us to move forward.

Jen Soch, executive director of specialty channels at WPPs GroupM

Were really seeing an idea where we can be with addressable and CTV part of the main video recommendation that goes into what were doing with a client, and look at it more holistically. she said. I do see a lot more interest in bringing it [addressable and CTV] very much to the forefront and being a bigger part of their overall play.

Kelly Abcarian, executive vice president of measurement and impact at NBCUniversal

Interoperability across linear and digital without losing the value of premium content along the way is going to be so critical, she said. If we lose and swing the pendulum too far to audiences only, imagine content being cheapened over the coming years and basically creating a society that the value is placed on audiences alone.I look forward to working with the industry on how, as we try to equivalize and become more interoperable, we dont lose the value of premium content.

Kristine Bayles, vice president of advanced advertising sales at AMC Networks

Addressable TV enables us to get the insights into communication and driving deeper understanding in the industry, she said. We all know TV is important, but CTV and VOD is just as importantViewership is truly fragmented now, and its not that less people are consuming, theyre just consuming differently. We need to understand this, and move forward with converged impressions.

Mark Marshall, president of advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal

Our goal on that [automated workflows] is to work with our partners on the agency side be able to get rid of about 30% of the manual work that we do, he said. How do we find different APIs [application programming interfaces] and different ways to interact, and take out some of the manual elements to allow us to move faster and hopefully improve margins for clients.

Nicole Whitesel, executive vice president of advanced TV and client success at Publicis Media

We need systems that collaborate tools that talk to each other, data that can break down those walls, IDs that can understand each other, she said. Better sharing of that data enables us to have conversations with our clients about outcomes, and outcomes that deliver change to their business, and outcomes that change the way they decide media mix.

Vicky Fox, chief planning officer at OMD UK

Weve moved from a place where people were quite wedded to a linear schedule, she said. Self-scheduling is going to be the norm for everybody. Anybody who switches on the TV and either looks at their connected TV menu or their EPG [electronic programming guide] can see how much has changed, because some of the linear schedules may take second place.

Richard Nunn, vice president and general manager of advertiser solutions at Comcast Technology Solutions

Through automation and understanding what has worked and what hasnt in more real time across channel that in principle, should mean a greater ROI across what is a fragmented channel base, he said. Theyll drive that solution a lot more efficiently because of technology.

You are watching Whats Next For Advertisers? Key Changes That Will Drive The Industry Forward, a Beet.TV leadership series presented by Comcast Technology Solutions. For more videos, please visit this page. For Comcast Technology Solutions paper on these topics, please visit this link.

Editors Note: Special thanks to Jon Watts who collaborated and reported for this series.

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Partnerships, Automation Underpin Future of Advanced TV: Execs from Comcast Technology Solutions, , GroupM, NBCUniversal, AMC, Publicis, OMD Beet.TV...

Samsung has announced SmartThings Edge, which isnt necessarily a new product, but a backend for all of your interconnected SmartThings gizmos and gadgets.

Its technically a new hub architecture, and Samsung says it should make all of your home automations even faster and easier.

The biggest takeaway from this announcement is that you wont see anything different on your app or directly with your devices. But going forward, your SmartThings Hub will be handling automation processing on device, instead of relying not he cloud for that processing power.

Theres some big advantages to this, including less latency and more reliability. Even if your internet is getting a little spotty, your automations should still work without a hitch, and theyll be quicker than they were before. You can also fully run your automations while offline, in case youre in a complete internet outage or maybe you just specifically dont have internet at your home.

Additionally, developers can now build device drivers with Lua as part of moving away from the old SmartThings platform, which should speed things up for other devices that youre trying to automate. Win/win all around.

Read more: SmartThings

Born in southern Alabama, Jared spends his working time selling phones and his spare time writing about them. The Android enthusiasm started with the original Motorola Droid, but the tech enthusiasm currently covers just about everything. He likes PC gaming, Lenovo's Moto Z line, and a good productivity app.

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SmartThings Edge will automatically make your home automations even faster by ditching the cloud - TalkAndroid

In the latest development relating to patent eligibility of content-based identifier patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed decisions finding patent claims ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. PersonalWeb Techs. LLC v. Google LLC, YouTube, LLC, Case No. 20-1543 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 12, 2021) (Prost, J.) (consolidating PersonalWeb Techs. LLC v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 20-1553, and PersonalWeb Techs. LLC, Level 3 Commcns. LLC v. EMC Corp., VMWare, Inc., Case No. 20-1554).

PersonalWeb sued technology companies in the Eastern District of Texas in 2011 over three of its patents. The patents were directed to data-processing systems that assign each data item a substantially unique content-based identifier, generated by hash algorithm, which changes when the content changes and is used to perform data-management functions. Several defendants successfully motioned for transfer to the Northern District of California, where their companies were headquartered and/or their employees responsible for the development of the accused products were based. After claim construction in Texas, the cases were transferred and stayed pending several inter partes reviews before the US Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board). Previous decisions before the Federal Circuit affirmed the Boards findings that using hash-based identifiers for data management was disclosed in the prior art; that content-based identifiers in performing file-management functions, such as backing up files, were also known and that many claims of the asserted patents had other unpatentable aspects. After the stay was lifted, the California court granted the defendants motion for judgment on the pleadings that the remaining asserted claims were patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. PersonalWeb appealed.

To assess patent eligibility, the Federal Circuit applied the two-step Mayo/Alice framework. Under step one (determining whether the claims at issue are directed to a patent-ineligible concept, such as an abstract idea), the Court considered the focus of the claimed advance over the prior art and found that the claims were directed to an abstract idea. PersonalWeb contended that its claims were directed to a substantially unique, algorithm-derived, content-based identifier for all data items in a networked computer, which allows a computer within a network containing diverse computing and storage systems to locate and distribute data without knowing either the file system of any device within the network or the conventional name of any data item. However, the Court adopted the district courts view, which was that the patents were directed to (1) using a content-based identifier generated from a hash or message digest function, (2) comparing that content-based identifier against something else, [that is,] another content-based identifier or a request for data; and (3) providing access to, denying access to, or deleting data. Given the focus in Mayo/Alice step one of whether the claims of the asserted patents fall within the excluded category of abstract ideas, and citing to parallel examples from precedent cases, the Court concluded that the claims were directed to the use of an algorithm-generated content-based identifier to perform the claimed data-management functions, which include controlling access to data items, retrieving and delivering copies of data items and marking copies of data items for deletion.

The Federal Circuit found that these functions were merely mental processes that can be performed in the human mind or using a pencil and paper, and that the claims focus were mere automation of manual processes using generic computers. As the Court explained, the step one inquiry looks to the claims character as a whole, rather than evaluating each claim limitation in a vacuum. In that regard, the Court found that the claims were merely a combination of the individual abstract-idea processes. PersonalWeb attempted to argue that similar to the circumstances in DDR Holdings, the claims offered a solution necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of computer networks, but the Court regarded the asserted efficiency improvements as no different as a library using content-based identifiers to purge duplicate books.

As for Mayo/Alice step two (considering the elements of each claim individually and as an ordered combination to determine whether the additional elements transform the nature of the claim into a patent-eligible application), the Federal Circuit did not find any such transformation. PersonalWeb argued that the claims applied inventive use of cryptographic hashes in a way that was not conventional nor routine prior to the patents. However, as noted, such use of hashes had already been found to be neither novel nor nonobvious, and the Court found that using content-dependent cryptographic hashes in place of conventional names failed to supply something more, much less significantly more, than the abstract idea itself.

In a non-precedential companion opinion released the same day, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district courts claim construction of unauthorized or unlicensed to mean not compliant with a valid license, and construed authorization to mean a valid license. In Re: PersonalWeb Techs. LLC, Case Nos. 20-1566, -1568, -1569 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 12, 2021) (Lourie, J.) In its appeal, PersonalWeb argued that the claim construction failed to give meaning to all of the words in the claim by ignoring the disjunctive or and reading unauthorized out of the claim. The Federal Circuit agreed with the district court that unauthorized or unlicensed should be treated as a single concept relating to the claimed purpose of controlling access to licensed content. The Court cited to the following: The patent abstract and specification, which treated these terms interchangeably; a Supreme Court of the United States ruling that or can be used to connect synonyms in the context of statutory construction and the Federal Circuits previous recognition that tenets of statutory construction can apply equally in interpreting patent claims. The Court found that the intrinsic evidence did not support any other type of authorization and refused to prioritize what it called unclear portions of the prosecution history from the patent family over the clarity with which authorized and licensed were used interchangeably in the written description. In light of the Courts precedent in Phillips v AWH Corp., the Court also found that the prosecution history represents an ongoing negotiation between the PTO and the applicant, rather than the final product of that negotiation, it often lacks the clarity of the specification and thus is less useful for claim construction purposes.

Practice Note: In drafting the claims and specification, take care to describe technological advancements in a manner that avoids allegations of mere automation. When reciting [A] or [B] in the claims, applicants should consider whether such terms are intended to be interchangeable and should use such terms throughout the specification and claims with intention.

[View source.]

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Without More, Mere Automation is AbstractNot Construing Interchangeable Terms Doesnt Give Them the Cold Shoulder - JD Supra

There was a time not too long ago when home automation was for cartoon space families and spy movies. But, with advances in technology, now anyone with a smartphone can automate their home, benefiting from scheduled and voice-activated lights, security systems, climate control, and more.

With so many smart-home products available, however, getting started with home automation can seem overwhelming. If youre new to home automation, this guide will get you acclimated and pointed in the right direction.

Related: The Best Smart Switch for Your Smart Home

The first step to home automation is choosing the best smart-home system, also known as an ecosystem, for your situation. Home automation newbies have lots of choices.

Generally speaking, the ecosystem that is best for you starts with a digital assistant or smartphone. Alexa and Google Assistant are favorites among Android users, while Siri from Apple is the clear choice for iOS users. From there, users can choose devices that are compatible with their Apple HomeKit, Google Home, Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, or other ecosystems. Some devices, like Philips Hue, utilize a smart hub to control devices, but more on that in a bit.

Beyond the devices compatibility, many home automation devices require a hub or bridge to unlock their full potential. The hub acts as the link between the users phone or digital assistant and the smart devices. Rather than using Wi-Fi to communicate between the devices, the hubs utilize radio signals.

In most cases, you dont need a hub to set up home automation. The appropriate app and ecosystem compatibility are usually enough. However, hubs can actually improve security. With fewer signals sent back and forth via Wi-Fi, there are fewer opportunities for tech-savvy thieves to steal the identifying information they might need to link to the Wi-Fi or access cameras.

When it comes to setting up home automation, new users might find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of devices they can automate: lighting, security systems, door locks, thermostats, sprinkler systems, window blinds, and more. For non-smart enabled devices, smart plugs can control on-off appliances like fans, some window air conditioners, holiday lights, and even coffee pots. Users can even replace standard light switches with smart switches.

When choosing these devices, check that theyll work with your chosen ecosystem. Some devices are compatible with Alexa and Google Home but not with Apple HomeKit. No device is genuinely universal.

Related: 6 Things to Know Before Switching to a Smart Thermostat

Smart-home devices tend to be much more expensive than standard home devices and equipment, so be ready for some sticker shock. A standard light bulb costs about $3, while a high-quality smart bulb could cost more than four times that price.

The following ranges provide a bit more background on the cost of automating a home with the best smart-home devices:

In almost any product category, there are less expensive options that work just as well as the big names. With home automation, however, thats typically not the case.

High-quality brands offer user-friendly apps, and theyre less likely to lose W-Fi connectivity or stop responding with the hub. The big-name brands like Philips, Apple, Amazon, Google, Nest, Belkin, Wemo, Arlo, iRobot, Ring, Sylvania, and August are the most trustworthy and least likely to cause frustration.

Apple HomeKit is an obvious choice for iPhone, iPad, and MacBook users, but the products are typically a little more expensive than Google Home or Amazon products. However, all three brands do a good job of updating and remaining relevant rather than outdated.

The Philips system is one of the more expensive lighting and smart home ecosystems, but its a well-oiled machine and usually worth the investment. For security, Ring and Arlo products are typically at the top of the heap.

Related: The Best Smart Switch for Your Smart Home

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A Beginner's Guide to Home Automation and the Best Smart Home Gear - BobVila.com

The delta variant is draining the global economy and destroying consumer confidence.

Democrats are struggling to get their infrastructure bill through.

And recovery stocks are suffering as a result.

But today, we look beyond the bad news and explore the opportunities waiting on the other side.

In this edition ofYour Money Matters, Ted and Clint show why automation and robotics in America are primed for major growth, why investors should get positioned now for the profits ahead and two ways to invest in the coming productivity boom.

In an interview with Barrons, Ed Yardeni calls this decade the Roaring 2020s and believes annual productivity growth could double from 2% to 4%.

But its not just about technology

You have an aging society, falling birth rates, resistance to immigration and a labor force growth of less than 1%.

So, are businesses willing to increase wages to keep workers or will machines replace the need for labor?

Ted and Clint predict the latter and show you charts to prove how bright the future is in automation and robotics.

Watch todays installment of Your Money Matters to also discover:

Click here to watch this weeks video or click on the image below:

(Click here to view video.)

Good investing,

Angela JirauPublisher, The Bauman Letter

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Previous Profit From the Coming Surge in Robotics and Automation - Banyan Hill Publishing

One of the major challenges in todays changing world is the choice to go about all business activities the old-fashioned way you are used to, or to automate business processes more.

Small examples of business automation would be:

More complex examples of automation would be:

The common objection to implementing more automation is usually, We are too busy raising capital and in meetings with investors to focus on automating our business. This can be true, but the truth is that automation is a skill that is constantly evolving and changing, and the sooner you learn time-efficient ways to implement new strategies, the less likely you are to be left behind as business communication accelerates.

There is a long list of ways to consolidate tasks, repurpose content in order to publish on multiple media channels and coordinate communication amongst your team.

To decide what automation should be a top priority, sit down with your team members and discuss:What part of their daily activities seem mundane or archaic?Where would they prefer to put the majority of their time and energy into work?What automation or software have they heard about that has caught their interest?

This could be a good framework to start making this important decision. Implementing a CRM system such as HubSpot, hiring additional help overseas for entry-level tasks and dividing my email list by profession and region (instead of just one massive list) have been critical to the growth of the Family Office Club. Innovation is the clear denominator to long-term success, and the hesitation to innovate is the clear reason for many organizational downfalls.

Andres Ospina is the managing director for Family Office Club.

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Tips for improved business automation when working with investors - Idaho Business Review

One thing you can do to make your job a little more future-proof, regardless of what it is: be human. [Getty Images]

If you're like most people, you probably think there's a good chance that AI or robots will have a significant impact on the global job market. Yet surveys also show that most of us think that these disruptive technologies are primarily going to affect someone elsesomeone with a skill set or an educational background that lends itself to repeatable work. This is a risky assumption on everyone's part, including mine.

AI and robotics aren't just for everyone else to think about. The robots are not only coming - they're already here. But that doesn't mean we're all out of a job. It means that we need to explore opportunities for ourselves and our teams to humanize the future of work to complement and even enhance AI, automation, and productivity.

At Salesforce, we recently invited award-winning New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose to discuss the impact automation is likely to have on our lives and jobs. Roose shared that AI and automation are already changing the way we work - particularly for highly-educated, white-collar workers, whose everyday jobs are already evolving thanks to AI.

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In the course of research for his book 'Futureproof: 9 Rules for Humans in the Age of Automation,' Roose found that for hundreds of years, we've been predicting what machines can and can't do - and that usually, we're wrong.

Here are a few examples to his point:

The disruptive technologies that would prove each of those predictions wrong went on to reshape economies and workforces forever. Yet at the time, each statement reflected widely-held beliefs. In the early 1980s, for instance, people were very skeptical that computers would ever meaningfully replace human travel agents. That changed quickly with the advent of travel-booking websites, which gave consumers direct access to making arrangements without a travel agency rep or the associated fees. Today, it's a lot more likely that you use online sites to book everyday travel, except when using a travel agent is mandated as a workplace policy.

Although many of us still think of robots on the assembly line as the typical agent of job displacement, AI has made advances in fields that many people never imagined were vulnerable to automation:

When you hear stories like this, it's easy to feel uneasy. Like many of us, as Roose was writing about the inroads AI was making, he got worried about his own replaceability as a journalist. He embarked upon a path to research how we can avoid being replaced by robots, which is the premise of the book and the bulk of his presentation.

Now an important question: What can we do as individuals to protect ourselves from being replaced by AI and robots? First, the bad news: Pretty much every job as it exists today can, in some way, be automated. In all honesty, there isn't any technology-proof job or career path for the long-term.

Now, the good news: Human creativity and resolve is at an all-time premium. And it's not limited to big 'C' creatives like (insert your favorite artist, composer, scientist, or performer).

This is not a time to panic - it's a time to build on the roles and capabilities that can be automated to deliver new value at every level. Upskilling is now for everyone. We are all students again. Creativity, empathy, critical thinking, collaboration, data science, resilience, adaptability, and other 'not-so-soft' skills are ranked as critical for everyone in a pandemic world and beyond.

As AI drives down the price of goods and automated services, it also increases the value of human goods and human experiences. It rewards those that are good at creating these new things in collaboration with machines.

With this in mind, there is one primary thing you can do to make your job a little more future-proof, regardless of what it is: not so ironically, be human.

There is one primary thing you can do to make your job a little more future-proof, regardless of what it is: not so ironically, be human.

The best way to differentiate yourself is through your humanity and creativity, not your productivity. Accentuate the human labor involved in what you do or what you make - whether it's making a ceramic bowl, providing customer service, selling a technology product, or how you show up in any given moment to be present, aware, and ready to participate.

Think beyond using AI and automation to work as fast, at scale, and cheaply as possible. That's what everyone else will do. Make that human touch more visible and more value-added. This is what the human economy is about: experiences and feelings that machines cannot replicate. Experiences are personal on every side. That's what makes them special. They involve human beings and in reality, it's that humanity combined with meaningful experiences, that we're going to seek out and pay a lot for.

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Salesforce com : Being Human in the Time of Automation - Marketscreener.com

Microsoft is set to be the only firm among the enterprise tech giants investing in robotic process automation (RPA) tools to make a significant impact, a report from Forrester claims.

The RPA market is set to be worth $2.9bn by revenue in 2021, up from $125m in 2016, while the two biggest players in the game, Automation Anywhere and UiPath, have a combined valuation of $39.2bn. UiPath, especially, appears to have convinced investors that robotic process automation is A Thing, with a $35.8bn valuation after its recent IPO in April.

However, the total RPA market is still tiny compared with the enterprise application market, worth $225bn in 2029, according to IDC. Nonetheless, vendors in the bigger market are still tempted to get a slice of the action. Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft have all made significant investments knitting RPA into their platforms in recent years, but only the Redmond OS giant is likely to make headway, Forrester said.

It predicted that two pure-play RPA vendors plus Blue Prism, which offers RPA and low-code tools, would control 32 per cent of the market by 2023, while Microsoft would command 5 per cent because it is integrating RPA with its Power platform, which includes low-code and self-service BI offerings and is integrated with Office and Dynamics application products.

"With the exception of Microsoft, IA acquisitions are less of a threat to pure-play RPA vendors. Tech giants have 'license power' but may bundle RPA as a check-off item or loss leader, and therefore, they lack focus on what makes RPA so compelling," the report said.

Speaking to The Register, report co-author and Forrester principal analyst Craig Le Clair said users might want to look at applications vendors' RPA products if they were looking for specific automations in those environments.

"If a large percentage of uses are in these domains like ServiceNow for IT Service Management or Salesforce for CRM, then it's absolutely fine to do a technical automation that links with those capabilities," he said. "But there are companies that are using [RPA] broadly across so many use cases across HR, finance and in their line of business that are trying to build an enterprise shared services for RPA, so they're better off with the alpha players."

The alpha players, the report explains, are the companies that specialise in RPA without also having products in applications or infrastructure, such as Automation Anywhere and UiPath, the two biggest.

RPA has been seen as a fragile approach to automation because it can rely on scraping application user interfaces, which, should they change, can make the whole process fall over.

But Le Clair claimed the leading vendors were beginning to overcome these problems.

Machine-learning techniques such as computer vision can help sense when a user interface changes and understand what those changes are, and help to automate an adjustment to the bot, he said.

"Those changes are likely to be a character field is moved from this location to another. A lot of these issues can be treated with relatively simple service automation capabilities that are evolving pretty well."

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Only one software giant to make impact on the robotic process automation market, says analyst - The Register