History of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) - everything you need to know to master RPA. Back

September 16 2022
Computer software called robotic process automation (RPA) automates repetitive activities. This tool boosts productivity while saving businesses money, and time, and ensuring customer happiness. All firms, regardless of size or revenue, prefer RPA technologies for digital transformation. According to a study by a major management consulting firm, automation technologies, including RPA technology, might have a financial impact of nearly $6.7 trillion by 2025. According to reports, businesses that implement this technology could see investments of between 30% and 200% in the first year. So, how did RPA technology develop from the past to the present?

RPA's enabling technology is machine learning

Machine learning is one of the key technologies for the advancement of RPA technology. Arthur Samuel, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, created machine learning for the first time in 1959. When machine learning first began, artificial intelligence (AI) was the goal.
Machine learning advancements have made it possible for computers to carry out a variety of valuable tasks. People have experimented with utilizing machine learning algorithms to conduct operations on texts. As a result of these tests, natural language processing (NLP) technology was created. This field of science, which had its start in the 1960s, combines AI with communications between computers and human languages. The development of RPA technology advanced significantly because of this combination.
"Computer vision" technology is another innovation that boosts the effectiveness of RPA systems. In the late 1960s, interest in computer vision technology began to grow. Although the anticipated advancement did not occur for about 30 years, Yann André LeCun's LeNet model's introduction in 1989 marked the boom period. This paradigm made it possible for RPA systems to extract data from documents like PDF and Image files.

Advancements in RPA Technology

As we get closer to the era when RPA technology was created, we can also observe the development of technologies that helped to create RPA. First, one of the earliest stages in the development of RPA was the development of screen scraping software in the 1990s. RPA was heavily utilized in order to extract data from programs, websites, and papers. The technology that is most like RPA, workflow automation tools, was also developed in the 1990s. The development of RPA benefited from the use of all these technologies.
The initial RPA software was created in the early 2000s because of these advancements. Despite being quite effective at automating repetitive operations, this RPA system had very limited features. Therefore, before 2015, few people were aware of its existence. In the past three to four years, RPA technology has flourished thanks to the development of AI technologies integrated with RPA. Research indicates that in 2021, RPA technology will be the most popular automation technology. RPA technologies are used by a lot of businesses nowadays, regardless of size. They invest in the efficiency that RPA technology gives them in expanding their business. You can get in touch with us if you want to learn more and take advantage of RPA software's benefits.