Automation is now the top trend in tech (McKinsey).

According to a recent Gartner survey, more

than 80% of organizations say they’ll “continue or increase” automation spending this year.
Now, chief information officers (CIOs) are stepping in to develop enterprise-level approaches to
strategy, governance, and platform technology.

As investment grows, boards want to make sure it’s being spent wisely and strategically. So
many of them are issuing ‘automation mandates.’ They want strategic and implementation plans
that deliver a world-class enterprise-wide automation capability—along with centralized
governance, visibility, and control.

By and large, CIOs are being tapped to deliver on these mandates. So, 2022 will see them
focused on critical issues like:

 What automation technology to standardize on

 How to balance between centralized initiatives and individual ones
 What organizational capabilities need to be built out
 How best to ensure good governance, security, and quality

Beyond these questions, they’re also moving closer to the revenue side of the business, asking
how automation might be used to support revenue growth and new business opportunities.
Robotic process automation (RPA) already has a strong track record in revenue-centric
operations like customer self-service, contact centers, and sales and marketing operations. (In
fact, IDC projects that by 2025, RPA-driven economic benefits from revenues will almost equal
economic benefits from cost savings and operational efficiencies.) Expect CIOs to build on
revenue growth momentum through innovative programs that reimagine businesses and
operating models with automation at the core.
Recommended reading: The CIO's Perspective on Automation

Trend #2: In the automation platform convergence battle,

RPA wins over BPA, iPaaS, LCAP, and AI
'RPA-plus' platforms expand to integrate capabilities from adjacent business process automation technologies.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the quiet—but intense—battle going on for the soul of automation
technology? Entrants from every option—business process automation (BPA), integration
platforms as a service (iPaaS), low-code application platforms (LCAPs), artificial intelligence
(AI) platforms and of course, end-to-end RPA platforms—have been vying to be the central
platform around which the other technologies will orbit.

This year, the battle will come to a head as CIOs move to coordinate automation across the
enterprise and coalesce around a single platform technology. And we believe that when the
smoke clears, RPA—or more precisely, RPA-plus—will be the winner. Here’s why:

 RPA adoption just keeps growing. In 2020, RPA was once again the fastest-growing
segment of the enterprise software market, notching a 38.9% increase to hit $1.9 billion
 in revenues, according to Gartner*. Growth is being fueled not only by adoption, but also
expansion across the enterprise. For example, as of September 2021, UiPath reported a
dollar-based net retention rate of 144%, meaning that our average customer had spent
44% more with us over the prior year. RPA leads in UI automation—which is critical for
automating a great many processes. UI automation is very hard to get right—which is
why others have had to play catch-up.
 Advanced RPA platforms incorporate enterprise-critical functionalities such as
governance, low-code/no-code build environments, and support for “democratization”
and scalability.

That’s not to say that RPA can do everything that other automation technologies can do—yet.
So, this year, you can expect RPA platforms to follow two simultaneous paths.

 First, look for them to move into adjacent categories with robust offerings deeply
integrated into their existing platform. RPA platforms will be able to natively handle a
broader range of use cases, expanding developers’ expressiveness—for instance,
allowing them to take on long-running processes requiring richer user interfaces or
higher-level AI and machine learning. RPA platforms will also focus on moving into the
LCAP adjacency with new tools and shortcuts to help citizen developers build
automations and applications.
 Second, expect them to invest in interoperability and easy integrations with other
automation technologies. Organizations can continue to use their current technology, if
they so desire, while the RPA platform provides management and governance.

Both paths will allow RPA platforms to seize and hold their position as the core technology
around which all other automation activities and technologies orbit—a strategy we call 'RPA-
plus.'
Ted Kummert, Executive Vice President of Products and Engineering at UiPath, discussed
'RPA-plus' and the next trend (see below) at UiPath FORWARD IV. Watch the full replay of the
keynote.

Trend #3: Automation moves to the top of the enterprise

stack and powers a new engagement layer
Robots, not people, weave together applications, systems, and software—allowing processes to be re-imagined.

Today, large enterprises have an average of over 170 different applications that people must
toggle between to get their work done. A huge amount of the average employee’s day is spent on
low-value, “swivel-chair” work—a huge drain on both enterprise productivity and the human
spirit.

Many organizations are addressing this problem by providing employees with digital desktop
assistants, or as we call it, 'a robot for every person™.' In 2022, we’ll see leading-edge
enterprises try something new: adding an “automation layer” at the top of their application
stacks.

This layer will sit between workers and the enterprise systems and applications they need to get
their work done. Robots, not people, will create digital joins between systems of record, and will
take on repetitive tasks like inputting data from one system into another or opening and closing
programs. It will contain connections and reusable components, a build environment, and
maintenance and governance capabilities.

Through standardization, reusability, and centralized governance and management, this new
layer can allow organizations to thoroughly reimagine their processes and quickly bring to life
new approaches that free people from the burdens of technology fragmentation.

Trend #4: Just-in-time, task-based workflows emerge as

alternatives to business-application-based workflows
First virtual assembly lines deliver ‘work-as-needed’ to people’s desktops.

Today people typically get work done within business applications: opening up Jira, moving to
Workday, completing tasks in Salesforce, and so on. But in 2022, we’ll see the emergence of a
new workflow paradigm. Instead of going to many separate business applications to get their
work done, people will receive a flow of just-in-time tasks on their desktops, teed up for them by
robots.

This approach shelters people from much of the complexity and fragmentation and frees them to
focus on important and valuable work. They won’t have to waste their time opening, closing, and
navigating within applications, or struggling to complete workflows that span multiple systems.
And they won’t have to deal with the loss in productivity as they get up the learning curve on
new or updated applications.
We think virtual assembly lines may have the same potential to unlock productivity in the digital
world that manufacturing assembly lines once unlocked in the physical world. That may be the
reason why IDC predicts that by 2024, “25% of new employee-facing application development
will be displaced by codeless development of discrete tasks that are assigned just in time to
workers paired with robot assistants.”

Trend #5: Automation centers of excellence (CoEs) step in to

solve the AI deployment problem
CoEs cover the last mile to deliver higher success rates and ROI for AI initiatives.

In a recent study of AI professionals, 64% said it took their organizations at least a month to
implement a new model—and 20% said, “6 months or more.” That’s a very long last mile.

Automation is proving to be an ideal choice for addressing this “last mile” problem in AI
execution. Today’s enterprise-grade platforms allow models to be quickly inserted into
workflows, so robots can access and apply them in real time. Human-in-the-loop feedback can be
added to support continual model improvement, as can automated data extraction,
transformation, and quality assurance (QA). Centralized monitoring, management, and full audit
trails support governance and compliance.

Leading-edge companies are already using automation to put models into production and bring
AI and machine learning (ML) into the front lines of actions, decision-making, and analysis. And
increasingly they are asking automation CoE teams to expand their purview beyond process
automation to also cover AI and ML deployment. Expect more automation CoEs to expand their
scope into AI implementation—and to forge tighter alliances between themselves and AI and
analytics CoEs in 2022.

Trend #6: ‘Semantic automation’ revolutionizes RPA

This year, the industry takes big strides in bringing ‘AI inside’ to make automation faster, easier, and more resilient than ever before.

Today, automation developers must tell robots what to do, step-by-step: “Move here, open this,
extract that, bring it there…” So even in drag-and-drop, low-code environments, building a
complex automation can be, well, complex.

But semantic automation lets developers move away from rules-based approaches. Semantic
software robots will be able to simply observe an activity and begin to emulate it without step-
by-step instructions. They’ll recognize the process, understand what data is required, and know
where to get this data and where to move it. Developers—or even business users—will be able to
initiate automation development simply by asking robots to perform a task or complete a
workflow.
UiPath CEO and co-founder Daniel Dines discussed semantic automation in his FORWARD IV
keynote. Watch the replay of his presentation.

We believe that we’re not overstating the case when we say that semantic automation has the
potential to revolutionize the industry, freeing up developers’ time, further democratizing
automation, and making it even easier to scale.

We have already crossed the first hurdles in 2021, achieving foundational advances in AI,
document understanding, and computer vision. Expect continued progress from us on this front,
as we incorporate new breakthroughs in AI and ML into our platform throughout 2022 and
beyond. One example is our new Forms AI, which is in public preview. It is semantic-
automation-powered document understanding. No need to define a template for each new
document type. The robot can understand and extract data from the fields of new document type
that it’s never seen before, all thanks to the ML model behind the scenes. This is just one
example of what’s to come in making robots evolve from ‘see, think, do’ to ‘see, think, do, and
understand.’
Trend #7: Desire for flexibility in delivery options spurs
cloud-based architectural innovation
Containerization and cloud native becoming the standard for both SaaS and non-SaaS delivery.

It may not be the most riveting aspect of the automation market, but delivery is often a critical
consideration in the platform purchase decision. And today, when it comes to choosing an
automation platform, the market is increasingly demanding more flexibility and less lock-in to a
particular delivery model. That, in turn, is spurring automation technology companies to develop
platforms that can be delivered from software as a service (SaaS) to on-premises with minimal
upheaval and disruption—and that allow for low-friction transitions to new delivery modes.

For many automation technology companies, that means adopting cloud native architectures that
leverage containerization and microservices. These modern technologies allow them to deliver
the same functionalities and capabilities regardless of how or where the customer wants to run
their platform. Customers won’t have to acquire new skills or substantially change their
operating procedures and environments, should they choose to transition to a different delivery
mode in the future. And on-premises customers gain greater flexibility, timeliness, and ease in
updating or expanding their installations.

In 2022, expect to see even more innovation in how platforms are designed and packaged.
Innovations will focus on delivering benefits like further minimizing the skills and effort
required to install, manage and upgrade platforms, and reducing the total cost of ownership
(TCO) for every delivery mode.

Trend #8: Automation finds a new C-suite champion: the

chief sustainability officer
Green IT, tech jobs for the underserved, and more: CSOs partner with CIOs to tap into the power of automation for the greater good.