[danjc]

I've been conflicted about RPA because my view is that if there's an API, you should use that rather than comparatively brittle screen-based "integration". What's extremely compelling about this approach though is that you can cut through all of the friction of API's - even end users understand how to use the UI so they're really empowered to build their own automation in a way that they haven't been previously.

[xeonoex]

Most big business use older software, and the small amount of it that does have an API often does not work correctly or is stable. Sad but true. I've ran into a lot of instances where people automate through the GUI because it is the best option. Developers don't realize this because they don't like working with older technology.

Also, at large orgs, software updates can take _forever_. I know of some examples where updating to the newer version of a B2B software taking 7+ years.

And a lot of those automations will need things like OCR or NLP. Even just out of the box Excel integration is a huge time saver. UiPath has activities built in for that. It's more than just GUI interaction. There's a ton of partner technology with out of the box integrations, and you get frameworks to build your automations on, as well as all of the infrastructure and orchestration.

Disclaimer: I work at UiPath

[peterangular]

80-90% of what I do doesn't have an API. If there's an API that's functional enough you're darn straight I'm going to be using that vs. Puppeteer, etc!