In today’s emerging technology world, future-ready solutions have become vital for organizations to get on a great success path. Many organizations are adopting AI in to make their business process run in a smooth manner.
The technology is growing rapidly, this rapid growth also creates confusion, as many organizations are unable to determine the right technology to invest in considering all the possibilities around AI-related technologies majorly like robotic process automation (RPA) and cognitive automation (CA). We often hear questions such as:
- Is it a right decision to invest in RPA?
- Would Cognitive Automation be able to solve all our used cases?
- What things to consider while investing in RPA on in Cognitive Automation?
Thus, we would like to make you understand both technologies clearly and explain their differences to help your organizations make more informed financial decision.
Both Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Cognitive Automation (CA) have the potential to make business processes smarter and more efficient. While robotic automation concerns mimicking human activity via a user interface, artificial intelligence is aimed at mimicking human thought process in Cognitive Automation. Organizations will probably need to utilize both technologies sooner than later. So, for now, understanding how they work is critical to making the right investments at the right times.
Let’s have a look at the below chart to identify the difference.
| RPA | Cognitive Automation | |
|---|---|---|
| Application |
RPA is a technology used to do repetitive human actions / tasks with more precisely and accurately by using software based BOT’s. RPA is ideal for those processes that do not require decision-making right or human intervention. However, there are going to be plenty of situations that do require human decision-making, and when there is voluminous data involved, it can become very challenging for the human workforce to make the right decisions. |
As a subset of AI, cognitive automation copies human behavior, which is in many ways more complex than the actions and tasks mimicked by RPA Bot processes. |
| Technology |
RPA relies on basic technologies, such as screen scraping, macro scripts and workflow automation. RPA does not require coding, as it depends more on the configuration and deployment of frameworks. |
Cognitive automation, on the other hand, uses more advanced technologies, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP), text analytics, data mining, OCR technology and machine learning (ML), to make it easier for the human workforce to make informed business decisions. cognitive automation uses machine learning and requires the extensive use of programming knowledge. |
| Data Processing |
RPA follows the structured data process to work on the standardized data means it can process the data when it is only available in a structured or semi-structured format. RPA enters the data into the system |
Any other format, such as unstructured data, requires the help of cognitive automation to build relationships and find similarities between the items by learning from organization. whereas the data would become presentable in a ready to consume format to make informed decisions will require cognitive automation |
| Automation |
RPA is rules-based and works on the ‘if-then’ principle. It is a process-oriented technology, which is often used to work on time-consuming tasks that were previously performed by a set of teams. |
Cognitive automation is a knowledge-based technology. Here, the machine goes through several human-like conversations and behaviors to understand how humans talk or behave and define its own rules. |
We help you to choose which one is right for your organization.
The choice of smart technology depends on the nature of your business process. If your business process involves structured, huge data and strictly rule-based, then RPA would be the right solution. However, if your business deals with complex, unstructured data that requires human intervention, then cognitive automation would be more suitable for your organization.
While RPA provides immediate ROI, cognitive automation often takes more time as it involves learning the human behavior and language to resolve and automate the data. However, if your process is a combination of simple tasks and requires human intervention, then you can go for a combination of RPA and cognitive automation.
Compusoft understands the evolution from RPA to cognitive automation and the importance of combining the two technologies to strengthen RPA tools with cognitive automation to provide end-to-end automation solution.
Our AI based Cognitive Automation Platform ensures any good Enterprise solution deployment gives maximum returns by ensuring all processes covering various stakeholders, both internal & external, are automated and integrated as part of a single solution. ProcMATE ensures even the smallest process is automated so the adoption of any enterprise solution is maximum to increase productivity & user experience.
Get in touch with us today to understand which one fits well for your business process according to use cases.
