The CEO of Automation Anywhere says the $7 billion AI startup can now 'automatically discover' new tasks to automate

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The CEO of Automation Anywhere says the $7 billion AI startup can now 'automatically discover' new tasks to automate
Mihir Shukla CEO of Automation Anywhere
  • The CEO of Automation Anywhere says the $7 billion AI-powered robotic process automation startup is now able to "automatically discover" business tasks to be automated.
  • CEO Mihir Shukla said the company found that 80% of business tasks are "not discoverable," which makes it hard for the platform to automate.
  • He said Automation Anywhere's new product, called "Discover Bot," uses AI to dig deeper into a business operation in order to automate those tasks.
  • "It automatically discovers automation opportunities within an organization," Shukla told Business Insider. "With a single click of a button, it will automatically create a bot. This vision that we had for many years of a bot creating a bot is finally becoming true."
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Software, powered by AI, can now automate common and repetitive business tasks from data entry to answering emails.

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The trend has turned robotic process automation into one of the fast-growing markets in tech.

Now, Automation Anywhere, a $7 billion AI startup, says it is taking on a major challenge in the RPA market: finding even more processes to automate, including tasks that are not clearly defined.

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"One problem we're trying to solve is how to accelerate the automation journey," Automation Anywhere CEO Mihir Shukla told Business Insider. "One of the challenges we our customers face is that 80% of the automation opportunities were undiscoverable."

To address that problem, Automation Anywhere has rolled out a new product called Discover Bot, which uses AI to analyze a business operation to find more tasks to automate. In fact, the product would allow a user to automatically create a bot to automate a task.

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"It automatically discovers automation opportunities within an organization," Shukla said.

He said automation systems rely on input from employees who are asked to describe tasks that the business is hoping to automate. But this can be a difficult process, he said.

"There are many things that we do instinctively," he said. "If somebody asked, 'Tell me the 10 processes you did today,' it would be hard. You will do them again tomorrow. And yet you can't list them quite in that way. Because it is part of your DNA, part of how you work."

He cited the example of the process a business uses to pay invoices. Employees may describe one version of the process. "Then I would say, 'So what about this?' And they would say, 'Yeah, that step we obviously do that. I forgot to mention,'" Shukla said. "So it's not a documented or standardized process, although many people seem to know it."

The Automation Anywhere tool would also allow users to quickly create a bot to automate a new task. "With a single click of a button, it will automatically create a bot," Shukla said. "This vision that we had for many years of a bot creating a bot is finally becoming true."

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The process of collecting and processing the data makes the AI tool even more effective and efficient.

"It makes a science out of data-driven decisions and accelerates the journey," he said. It would make it possible for a business to embark on "a virtuous cycle through which customers will keep automating keep discovering processes keep automating," Shukla said.

"Every day you will discover, automate, optimize, discover, automate, optimize," he said.

Automation Anywhere, which is based in San Jose, Calif., said it now has nearly 4,000 customers and more than 2,500 employees. The startup has raised $840 million from investors including Salesforce Ventures and currently valued at $6.8 billion.

Got a tip about Automation Anywhere or another tech company? Contact this reporter via email at bpimentel@businessinsider.com, message him on Twitter @benpimentel or send him a secure message through Signal at (510) 731-8429. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

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