How RPA and machine learning work together in the enterprise

More enterprises have adopted RPA functions to automate rote, repetitive tasks, but sometimes they need more capabilities. Enter machine learning functions and the result is "intelligent automation" which, unlike RPA, can learn and adapt. The choice between the two should depend on the use case, but in today's AI-crazed world, there's a misconception that intelligent automation must be better when, in fact, robotic process automation (RPA) may be a more elegant solution. "We view AI/ML as knowing what to do, RPA is knowing how to do it," said Muthu Alagappan, chief medical officer at intelligent automation platform provider Notable Health. "For example, OCR can be used to extract information from insurance cards, photo IDs and clinical documents. From there, RPA [enters] the extracted data into existing systems of record." RPA simply executes its programming, so if requirements change, it needs to be reprogrammed.