Software bots that mimic human actions on a computer, such as clicking, typing, and copying data, to automate repetitive tasks.
Robotic process automation (RPA) does not involve physical robots. It uses software bots that interact with applications through the user interface, just as a person would. A bot might open emails, download invoice attachments, read key fields, enter them into an accounting system, and send a confirmation.
RPA is popular in finance, insurance, human resources, and customer service, especially where older systems lack modern APIs. It can reduce errors and free staff from tedious work. However, bots can break when screens or layouts change, and automating a poor process just makes a poor process faster. Many vendors now combine RPA with AI for reading documents and handling exceptions, sometimes called intelligent automation.
A software system that uses an AI model to plan and carry out multi-step tasks, often by calling tools, APIs, or other programs on its own.
APIApplication Programming Interface: a defined set of rules that lets one piece of software request data or services from another.
Low-CodeA development approach that lets people build applications mainly through visual interfaces and drag-and-drop components with little hand-written code.
Optical Character RecognitionTechnology, known as OCR, that reads printed or handwritten text in images and scanned documents and turns it into editable text.
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How intelligent document processing reads invoices, forms and contracts, how it differs from OCR and RPA, and where human review still belongs.