The bots turning businesses into digital transformers

Analyst Forrester defines robotic process automation (RPA) as a technology that provisions software agents – bots – that can mimic human interactions with software systems. These bots run predictable tasks, and act either in concert with humans (attended RPA) or mostly autonomously (unattended RPA). Increasingly, RPA is adding artificial intelligence (AI)-based capabilities, such as reading unstructured data. IT research firm Computer Economics says in its April 2019 Technology trends report that bots are typically taught by human example to respond to various triggers. For example, when an employee submits a change of address form to the human resources (HR) department, the bot could then be used to trigger an update to the records in payroll, benefits systems, expense reporting and accounts payable, just as a human clerical worker might do.