RPA vs cognitive automation: What are the key differences?

They become capable of anticipating new problems and modeling possible solutions. Cognitive automation plays a pivotal role in the digital transformation of the workplace. It is a form of artificial intelligence that automates tasks that have traditionally been done by humans. By automating these tasks, businesses can free up their employees to focus on more important work. The value of intelligent automation in the world today, across industries, is unmistakable.

• Realizing that they can not build every cognitive solution, top RPA companies are investing in encouraging developers to contribute to their marketplaces where a variety of cognitive solutions from different vendors can be purchased.
• Besides the application at hand, we found that two important dimensions lay in (1) the budget and (2) the required Machine Learning capabilities.
• Here are the important factors CIOs and business leaders need to consider before deciding between the two technologies.
• Comparing RPA vs. cognitive automation is ”like comparing a machine to a human in the way they learn a task then execute upon it,” said Tony Winter, chief technology officer at QAD, an ERP provider.

”RPA is a great way to start automating processes and cognitive automation is a continuum of that,” said Manoj Karanth, vice president and global head of data science and engineering at Mindtree, a business consultancy. Comparing RPA vs. cognitive automation is ”like comparing a machine to a human in the way they learn a task then execute upon it,” said Tony Winter, chief technology officer at QAD, an ERP provider. It infuses a cognitive ability and can accommodate the automation of business processes utilizing large volumes of text and images. Cognitive automation, therefore, marks a radical step forward compared to traditional RPA technologies that simply copy and repeat the activity originally performed by a person step-by-step.

Customer experience and engagement

According to Saxena, the goal is to automate tedious manual tasks, increase productivity, and free employees to focus on more meaningful, strategic work. “RPA and cognitive automation help organizations across industries to drive agility, reduce complexity everywhere, and accelerate value of technology investments across their business,” he added. RPA tools were initially used to perform repetitive tasks with greater precision and accuracy, which has helped organizations reduce back-office costs and increase productivity. While basic tasks can be automated using RPA, subsequent tasks require context, judgment and an ability to learn. Cognitive automation can use AI techniques in places where document processing, vision, natural language and sound are required, taking automation to the next level.

As CIOs embrace more automation tools like RPA, they should also consider utilizing cognitive automation for higher-level tasks to further improve business processes. Another viewpoint lies in thinking about how both approaches complement process improvement initiatives, said James Matcher, partner in the technology consulting practice at EY, a multinational professional services network. Process automation remains the foundational premise of both RPA and cognitive automation, by which tasks and processes executed by humans are now executed by digital workers. However, cognitive automation extends the functional boundaries of what is automated well beyond what is feasible through RPA alone. Robotic process automation (RPA), also known as software robotics, uses automation technologies to mimic back-office tasks of human workers, such as extracting data, filling in forms, moving files, et cetera. It combines APIs and user interface (UI) interactions to integrate and perform repetitive tasks between enterprise and productivity applications.

RPA or cognitive automation: Which one is better?

Most RPA companies have been investing in various ways to build cognitive capabilities but cognitive capabilities of different tools vary of course. The ideal way would be to test the RPA tool to be procured against the cognitive capabilities required by the process you will automate in your company. Even if the RPA tool does not have built-in cognitive automation capabilities, most tools are flexible enough to allow cognitive software vendors to build extensions. Therefore, required cognitive functionality can be added on these tools.

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