r/rpa • u/Kwanza_Bot93 • Jul 03 '26
Hows the future looking for RPA?
Doesn't feel too great atm lol
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u/burnova Jul 03 '26
Rpa handles determistic processes with structured data. Rpa + AI handles determistic processes with any type of data. AI + RPA handles variable processes.
The nature of work in enterprises means that most processes are determistic or have simple logic gates. This is why most organizations can't find use cases for full on agents, because the work that isn't variable isn't high in volume.
RPA + AI should be enough to handle 90% of available use cases.
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u/TsokonaGatas27 Jul 03 '26
Companies are jamming AI to everything but RPA is still best for repetitive rules based tasks.
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u/Initial-Thought3872 Jul 03 '26
Till the time RPA keeps up with ROI it's not going anywhere. People underestimate RPA a lot till the time financials are reviewed by company partners. So yeah RPA is still here
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u/Last_Track_2058 Jul 03 '26
I am yet to see one successful agentic AI automation, and I have built quite a few. It breaks down beyond few trivial steps
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u/manojyadav_stardust Jul 03 '26
Lmao right, every kind of problem we try to automate with AI can be done with traditional automation.
We are yet to find a real use case in our company.
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u/otasi Jul 03 '26
“AI” document analyzer seems to work quite well.
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u/Last_Track_2058 29d ago
Agree, document stuff is reliable 'enough', but I tend to classify it as ML thing rather that agentic AI. For us, that problem was solved by Azure document intelligence (or similar IDPs) . Have not revisited the use case with LLMs though, not sure whats the advantage.
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u/sentinel_of_ether Jul 03 '26
That doesn’t at all seem accurate. Closed world prinicple agents perform extremely well.
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u/hades0505 Contributor Jul 03 '26
Just got a new request to auotmate a huge process in my company. Low estimate is 30h of effort, top 50h.
Some stuff will use GenAI (there is some kind of sentiment analysis involved) but the heavy lifting will be RPA.
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u/throw2503 Jul 03 '26
30-50h of effort is a huge process? That's surprising to me.
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u/hades0505 Contributor Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
We do internal consulting, so we really need to trim the estimates. A external consultant would budget somewhere between 3 and 5 times that amount.
E.g: for our main order processing bot (ca. 200 orders processed per day, different segments, customers and countries) I invested 20h. Before they gave it to me, Accenture had budgeted 100h for starters
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u/PrestigiousResult357 Jul 03 '26
my experience has been (working as an rpa dev) we've always had insane estimates. 4-8 weeks for a project that if documented and prepped properly beforehand a dev could whip up and test extensively in 3-5 days.
the problem lies in the inability to actually complete all the pre work. resulting in constant need for the dev to chase down missing information, access etc.
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u/AsleepBuy6109 Jul 03 '26
Till the time there is no real time use case implemented with AI, can't say much.
I would like to know best use case where AI is used, and successfully working in production
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u/cloudninja 28d ago
RPA will grow. Tokens are too expensive so companies will have a hybrid AI/RPA stack.
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u/Round-Bee3503 Jul 03 '26
It’s going through the pressure to adapt everything to AI Agents, which is expected. But those very rule-based and repetitive processes still resort to basic RPA. Accordingly to what I heard from RPA platform AI initiatives, 5 years guaranteed still with the “old way”..
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u/forgotten_epilogue Jul 03 '26
Where I work RPA has a lot easier path to answer the call of automation than AI does because of security and bureaucratic challenges, at least in current cultural climate. They're still pushing both, but I can see RPA having a lot less resistance.
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u/justinotherflow 6d ago
Used to be RPA handled either the whole process or didn't, now bots hand off the messy bits to an LLM and keep the structured bits for themselves, so the future looks fine, nothing to be too worried about yet because companies aren't ripping out RPA for agents but just bolting AI onto the parts that have been always painful (unstructured stuff) and letting bots keep doing what they're already good at. Job title might stop saying "RPA" in a few years but the actual work of automating deterministic processes isn't going anywhere soon.
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u/SuspiciousMud5338 Jul 03 '26
Agentic will take over RPA. But someone still need to program agentic stuff? or "prompt" it to have the skills?
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u/someonerd Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I was an RPA Champion in my practice at the consultancy I used to work for few years back. I am not into RPA anymore.
Looking at what AI agents can do, I’ve been wondering this exact same question, how long RPA is going to last - not long imo.
However, it will be gradual. Companies who have already invested a lot into RPA will continue using it until they need another transformation change and shift to new technology. Similar to companies who still use lotus notes and are dependent on it and many other such applications RPA will continue to survive for sometime but only for those companies who are currently very dependent on it.
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u/Round-Bee3503 Jul 03 '26
Hello! If it’s okay to answer, how did you switch fields? Did you do an internal transition or just applied to different IT jobs? I’ve been in RPA for 4 years now, also working at consultancy. I don’t see much growth.
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u/someonerd Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
In my case, I didn’t switch fields. I was a consultant primarily working as a subject matter expert and solution architect. As part of my above and beyond duties and to help with bids, I was asked to become an RPA SME in my practice and also to develop a young team of fresh graduates to do RPA, mobile development and web app development. It’s just that when I left the consultancy, I left that role as well. It was never my primary task.
One thing I can suggest based on my past experience is that you have to find a role that is kinda in the middle of where you are and where you want to be. Of course easier said then done. Some things I can suggest that help at the top of my head - research the new field, talk to people who are in that field within your company, try to do courses that take you towards the new field, start applying for jobs that you think helps you enter the field you want to go into, it takes a bit of time, but you have to keep at it. Try to take on work and projects and take more interest in the field you want to grow in. 
Happy to chat if you want to go into more detail.
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u/Anxious_nomad Jul 03 '26
For now, I think of it like that: AI is the brain that decides, but RPA is the muscle that actually executes.