Automation Anywhere Reviews

We are using Automation Anywhere majorly for automation, automating web applications or desktop applications.

The best features of Automation Anywhere include the user interface, which is quite easy to use now compared to its previous versions that were more difficult. The interface is user-friendly, and all code is visible during coding, showing what is going ahead and what follows in the code. This is not available in other RPA tools such as UiPath, which makes it a standout feature.

Additionally, Automation Anywhere is robust and the support is good. We get connected with the support team whenever required.

Co-Pilot is used for the processes involving human input while automating tasks. In the context of Automation Anywhere, it allows us to create various forms to facilitate this interaction. By incorporating user feedback during the automation process, we can streamline operations effectively. Overall, using Co-Pilot is straightforward and user-friendly, making it easy to build automations based on the forms we create.

There are several areas for improvement in Automation Anywhere that have been suggested by my team and colleagues during their Imagine event. They need work on WLM and when handshaking with their own application, as there is significant wiring required from a developer perspective. The WLM could be much easier and more understandable. It should be more accessible to developers because in the WLM, if a solution is developed, it cannot be tested in the dev environment. Testing must be done in the runner environment.

From a developer's perspective, there are fewer integration facilities, particularly AI integrations, compared to other tools. The pricing could also be improved.

Automation Anywhere has been in use for about nine years.

The stability of Automation Anywhere can be rated a nine out of ten. It is good.

In terms of scalability, there have been no significant issues. Hundreds of bots have been developed without facing any problems. The scalability can be rated a nine out of ten.

In my current organization, 10 to 15 employees are working with Automation Anywhere. The larger team in other RPA department are using UiPath.

They often provide good solutions, but sometimes they are unable to resolve issues, requiring users to find solutions independently, which can be time-consuming. I would rate their technical support a seven out of ten.

We are using it as a SaaS solution. If we choose an on-premises solution, we receive a bundle that we need to install. This installation can be done on Azure, any cloud service, or on our own server machines. On the other hand, when we opt for a SaaS solution, they create control rooms and set everything up for us. We are only given an access key, or what could be referred to as a license key. By entering this license key, we can directly access the system. We can typically receive the license key quickly, often within a minute, for their cloud version. That's what I know about these solutions.

It requires some maintenance, but they are actively addressing it. They install patches and provide updates for the package versions. As a user of the SaaS solution, we don’t need to worry about these details. However, for the on-premises version, I believe users need to manually implement the solutions. Whenever there are updates or new package versions available, they deliver them to us, and we must install them in the control room.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere is very straightforward. It requires just clicking a button to upgrade multiple components including packages, solutions, control rooms, and the bot engine.

Regarding bot maintenance, if there are no changes in the web application or desktop application and no machine issues, bots can run for three to four years without human intervention.

The time saved by implementing Automation Anywhere depends on the number of applications involved. With fewer applications, it can save up to 40% to 50% of time. However, with complex applications involving multiple pages and interactions, the savings shift toward FTE savings, with time savings reducing to 10% or 20%. Sometimes it may take longer than manual user operations.

The pricing of Automation Anywhere is less than UiPath but more than Power Automate, placing it in the mid-range. It can be considered expensive and could potentially be lowered.

When comparing with other automation tools such as Power Automate and UiPath, all tools address similar problem statements but with different approaches. Each has unique features and limitations.

Technical skills are essential for RPA. If you know any programming language and have some technical understanding, you will find it easier to get into RPA. However, if you lack knowledge of programming languages, it may be challenging for you. Learning RPA involves keeping up with new features and updates, so we are continuously learning the platform. It took me about one to two months to fully understand how to complete a process on my own.

I would rate it a six out of ten. They can refine their pricing and improve the handshaking features and integrations. 

Through Automation Anywhere RPA, we have been able to save thousands of hours of AP invoice processing each year.

Automation Anywhere RPA has enabled a lot of our employees to have their valuable time freed up to do other things, ranging from the Treasury department, the Revenue department, General and Cost Accounting. We had lots of manual processes, no automation whatsoever, and the automations are able to automate those things, such as document processing, PDFs, and ERP system navigation, enabling our employees to focus on other things that require more critical thinking and decision making.

As far as what could be improved with Automation Anywhere, I think they have a really wonderful product. There have been things in the past that I have asked them to improve or submitted a ticket to them to improve, and I've seen results from that. 

They have implemented something that makes the product better. 

If there was anything that I would ask for improvement on, there were times in the past where through submitting a ticket for support, it seemed that some of the engineers who were helping me did not understand the product that they were supporting. That felt difficult because I felt I was almost explaining the product to the company. But again, isolated and for the most part, it's been a really good experience.

Before we implemented Automation Anywhere, we were not using any automation or RPA solution back in 2018.

Their support team is really great, and they also have a really robust online community, the Pathfinder Community, where developers and automation leaders can go and have discussions, submit use cases or issues, and get support from others as well. I have also had Automation Anywhere staff respond and reach out to me through a Pathfinder community post that I've made. Their ticketing system is also good, and they recently implemented an artificial intelligence agent in their email responses that has helped guide the ticket through the escalation process.

We didn't have anything in place before adopting Automation Anywhere.

For others who are looking for an RPA solution and considering Automation Anywhere, I would encourage you to choose Automation Anywhere if you are hoping to have any level of citizen development involved. 

They make it very easy for anyone to learn and pick up the skills required to develop bots. Beyond citizen development, I think that they have a very reliable platform that is very robust in functionality. 

They can integrate with many applications, and they make it very easy to create automations that scale and are able to automate a wide array of business processes.

When we were looking to implement an RPA solution, one of the other prospective vendors that we looked at was UiPath. One thing that stood out to our company was how approachable Automation Anywhere was compared to UiPath, which seemed to be more developer focused and more technical focused, not as low-code as Automation Anywhere. 

With Automation Anywhere, you could come from anywhere, any level of experience, and any industry. You can learn from their Automation Anywhere University and become a bot developer, which is what we did, since all of our team is composed of accountants who are in the industry first and technical second. Automation Anywhere really provided a solution that let us make that work.

I don't have the exact figures regarding the hours we reduced, but I can say that it is thousands of hours. It's less clear in other departments whether we have seen benefits, as it's more focused on quality of life and relieving pain points. 

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Automation Anywhere as a nine, really because I believe that they're a very fantastic RPA company. Any company has bumps and bruises, but with Automation Anywhere, it's been a very reliable solution that has been able to achieve anything that we need. 

It's been easy to learn for developers who want to pick it up and easy to manage from a Control Room perspective on the back end. As a company, I just really think that they do a very good job at delivering on the customer's needs.

We implement Automation Anywhere for our customers or for our clients, but we also use it internally for our own processes too.

We're in a growth phase, so this solution helps us scale and standarize processes so we can do more with less. 

The low-code platform is pretty easy to learn, especially if you have come from a technical background. Then you can build quite a few powerful automations with it already with the traditional RPA in terms of the flexibility it gives you. 

There are additional features, such as document automation, that expand the scope in terms of what you can use it for. It's a great multi-tool. Every piece of it works really great. 

For us, the features of Automation Anywhere help us scale our automations and standardize our processes. We are able to do more with less, and that's been the key for us in terms of using the platform.

In our automation processes, we are utilizing the AI Agent Studio mostly in our training. We haven't fully rolled out any live automations yet. That's something we'll implement very soon. The integration features of Automation Anywhere are flexible in terms of what you can connect to. You can bring it over lens or use what's available, which gives a lot of flexibility in terms of how you can use the platform.

We have explored the autopilot capability of IQ Bot AI, and it's maturing. We are keeping an eye on it to determine if it can speed up the development work for us. We are definitely curious and will continue to explore as the product evolves.

We utilize Automation Anywhere's CoE Center of Excellence Manager. Its impact on visibility in the automation lifecycle is actually very important. It shows the complete lifecycle of opportunities, from what's in pipeline to what's been deployed, and how those deployments are performing in production.

In the age of agentic AI, it's allowing us to imagine what comes next.

My impression of the AI governance features in maintaining compliance and data integrity in our company so far is positive. Though we haven't rolled out anything actively yet, from what I see, it gives quite a granular level of control in terms of what can be done and how different outputs can be controlled. AI governance is very important to our company, and while the AI Agent Studio's compliance feature might not be as mature, there are security requirements around keeping our customer data safe and secure.

The availability of material in terms of more technical documentation could be improved, particularly in-depth information about how things can be done. I'm not saying it's not available at this time, but there's always scope in terms of playbooks, especially with APA coming out, as things can be done differently than traditional methods. It would be beneficial to have standardized playbooks that we can use to understand change management, position this to our leadership, and demonstrate the art of what's possible. Some playbooks of that kind, especially on the execution level, would be nice.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for about five years.

Before adopting Automation Anywhere, we haven't really used other solutions. 

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that it's pretty flexible in terms of standing it up. You don't have to have a whole lot of infrastructure setup that's required for it.

It has not yet influenced our automation programs and we're not really tracking the level of return on investments.

My experience with the pricing, the setup costs, and the licensing of the Automation Anywhere platform is that it's pretty competitive.

We do test different solutions to see how they are in the market. They don't necessarily have with Automation Anywhere offers. 

Automation Anywhere helps us overcome operational challenges. Especially with what's been announced recently, the solution expands a lot more beyond what was typically possible so far. I'm looking forward to checking it out in practice and seeing how much we can push the platform. 

We've just started with APA, so we don't have anything rolled out yet, however, we are looking forward to actively using it.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. Within any solution, there is always room for improvement. They seem to be going through a maturity phase. The foundation is strong. 

Our main use cases when using Automation Anywhere involve a lot of end-to-end processing with a human in the loop. With the GenAI features and capabilities, we are now exploring and extending or expanding our use cases further.

We haven't done anything with AI agents just yet. We've just tapped into the GenAI aspect. We're excited to explore AI agents and how they can impact our existing and new processes. We have ideas, but we haven't delved down that path just yet.

The biggest challenge for our company is getting the correct information from an end-user regarding what they're trying to accomplish. Getting that information from one point to another is our biggest challenge. We're excited about the generative aspect of it because we know that it can listen to the end-user, pull relevant information or regenerate what it needs to, and provide it back to them as an assistant. We're excited for this capability.

We haven't tapped into AI agents, but everything else with the platform has absolutely helped, such as its basic RPA capabilities, Co-pilot, and human in the loop. It's definitely made our work jobs a lot easier because of those capabilities, and the same thing is with our end-users.

Automation Anywhere has helped us to achieve our automation goals. It's made our lives significantly easier to be able to tap into that environment with the ease of development and the ease of use. It's made things much simpler, much quicker to develop, and scale up.

We utilize Document Automation in our current processes. That was one of our biggest draws to Automation Anywhere when we first invested. We looked at a bunch of different IDP tools initially before Document Automation. Automation Anywhere had the IQ Bot tool. That's what we first invested in, and then we were excited when they did the upgrade to Document Automation. The capabilities there are a lot easier to use out of the box. It's a lot easier to scale, and there are AI benefits to it.

Document Automation has absolutely impacted our efficiency and productivity. We had one process specifically that drew us to this use case and then expanded it much further out, where we're essentially inputting invoices that don't go through our normal procurement system. It used to go through our AP team for manual input. It used to take a full person's time a year to do that. We're saving essentially a full FTE through Document Automation. That was our first use case with it, and we have a couple of others in various other accounting operations and tax bases that save significant hours. We also have some hard dollar savings along with it. It has had a huge impact so far, and we see it being a huge impact going forward.

We've used a couple of different tools, and it just has the best end-user experience. Among everything we've tried, it's the easiest one to pick up from the product perspective. They're doing everything right.

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is that the end-user experience is superior to any of the other tools on the market that we've looked at. We've shifted platforms a couple of times, and Automation Anywhere is the one that stuck based on end-user experience, the ease of development, and trainability with the tool.

Automation Anywhere has definitely made a significant impact in terms of hours saved to scale up. We've had to re-platform a couple of processes from other tools to Automation Anywhere. We are doing the exact same process, but the hours saved have been more because of the end-user experience and ease of development. The time it takes to get it up to scale has been a lot quicker than everything else. It has made a significant improvement for new and existing processes that we've shifted over.

I don't have an example of how Automation Anywhere can be improved. This definitely isn't a negative. One thing I loved about Automation Anywhere compared to some of the other tools out on the market is that there are constant improvements and constant updates, and they're letting us know of those. Anytime we see a challenge and bring it to the attention of the team, they always let us know that it is on the roadmap for future releases. A lot of the issues that we've had, we've been able to wait a little bit of time, and whatever problem they're trying to fix has been deployed in future releases.

We've had some technical difficulties connecting, but that's more on our environment and how we have the machines and everything set up. It's not specific to Automation Anywhere. However, it's pricier than some of the other tools. 

We are coming up to year four.

We were using one of their competitors. We started our automation journey about seven years ago with a consulting partner that helped us pick the right tool for us. At the time, Automation Anywhere was still on the market, but they weren't one of the leaders that they are now. Over time, that solution has been very helpful for us, but it never progressed the way Automation Anywhere has. There wasn't a leap and bounds progress in terms of investments in the tool and the new capabilities and features. That's what drew us to the Document Automation or IQ Bot. The other tool we were using did not have the same success rate, ease of development, and user experience. We looked at Automation Anywhere, amongst two or three others. Automation Anywhere was by far the best of those tools. While we were using that, we explored the RPA and other features. RE before it became Co-pilot and other functionalities drew us to it. We started investing more heavily in Automation Anywhere, and now it's our primary automation tool.

Our team has specifically only used Automation Anywhere and one other tool. Other businesses may have used it, but they don't have the same structure set up that we do now. We are the automation team within our organization, so we're the ones who are doing it on a consistent basis. If any other team has done it, it hasn't been problematic.

For the most part, it's been fairly seamless. The biggest struggle on our end seemed to be with just the technical connections. It's just how we have the infrastructure set up. We're housing an on-prem solution. We're exploring the cloud and shifting there because I know it'll be easier management from our side. There'll be fewer technical issues. It will be a lot easier to get newer updates from the tool itself. That's one thing that we're looking into now.

It's unique compared to certain other tools that we've used. It's somewhat pricier than some of the other tools that we've used, and the breakout between the different applications is also somewhat costly. If they can make it a little more cost-effective or bundle packages a little bit more, that would be beneficial.

AI governance is very important in my company and in general. Before we even tapped into the AI infrastructure, that was one thing we made sure was set up beforehand. We have a whole AI governance policy and a committee. Anytime there's an AI project, it needs to go through that committee. They need to understand all the data that's going to be processed through it, what tools we're going to be using, and what the project is as a whole. It needs to get approval before we can build it out.

We had an AI committee and a governance structure in place before we delved into the AI space. All of our data is in a secure cloud. We can't have anything touching the public environment, just based on the sensitivity of the data that we have. It's very secure and strong as a governance structure.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. I don't think anything is a perfect ten. There's always room for improvement. Out of everything that we explored and learned, and used previously, it's made a huge impact. We're excited for what's to come, and we're definitely going to be using it for a long time.

I have been running Automation Anywhere since 2017 at Experian. The main use cases for it primarily focus on citizen development. Back then, Power Automate was not mature, and Microsoft did not offer the features that Automation Anywhere provided. We aimed for self-service automation for business units, unlocking citizen development across various company areas, like HR, finance, auto, and health. We implemented it as part of our continuous improvement mindset, akin to our Six Sigma, called the empowered program. When exploring improvement opportunities, automation naturally fits in. We use it for our mailing processes to assist those familiar with macros or scripting. Automation Anywhere has become the preferred tool for seasoned developers, enabling them to build their automation. I report to the Smart Automation CoE, the intelligent automation program at Experian. We govern the technology and train citizens to build their automations.

Nowadays, the tool is unique as it offers various automation capabilities in one platform, which once required different vendors. Even with Automation Anywhere's acquisitions, like FortressIQ, users can directly access features for document automation, process discovery, or RPA. From a technical standpoint and an end-user perspective, the platform is user-friendly and doesn't require complex setups like IDEs, unlike Power Platform. I've also observed changes in processes, as people are now more familiar with interacting with bots. This familiarity changes the way they do business.

As a customer, not just a user, I desire a better understanding of translating traditional RPA into newer features like Copilot and Majentik, leveraging API tasks. We've been running the program for eight years, with team members having their own frameworks. Helping them transition to advanced features is crucial. With over four hundred bots live in Experian, requiring recoding for Copilot involvement would lead to pushback. Automation Anywhere could assist in this transition.

I have been running Automation Anywhere since 2017 in Experian.

It is pretty stable. Especially with SaaS, it is always available and up and running. I can't think of any disruptions in the environment.

My impression links back to the initial point about integrating agentic AI and process automation features. I'm eager for the upcoming summit to see advancements towards scaling the product. Currently, Power Platform already offers seamless GenAI integration. I look forward to Automation Anywhere achieving similar seamless integration for broader-scale automation.

I think that customer service is a question because we didn't have the Orange plan previously. Last year, we gained access to this tier, simplifying case resolution. Previously, resolving issues required navigating through various layers before reaching an architect or expert. Now, support quickly assigns technical resources, improving the experience.

Positive

Thank you for that. You mentioned experience with other RPA solutions like Power Automate. We don't own the Power Platform program at Experian, but it's accessible to all employees under the Office 365 licensing. This includes Power Automate flows and Power Apps. It's common for Copilot agents to be utilized, providing full capability and access to these features.

I would say setup is straightforward as long as full access to prerequisites and features is available. We don't have access to spin up databases or servers, relying on different teams, which delays deployment or upgrades. For companies where the COE has full control, setup is straightforward.

Usually, our team involves one or two people as the process is straightforward. We plan maintenance outside business hours and coordinate with groups owning the database or servers. This organizational structure may differ for other companies.

Absolutely, we classify ROI as time saved. It doesn't generate revenue directly, but focuses on unlocking productivity, allowing businesses to concentrate on value-adding activities. Automation Anywhere aids in handling repetitive tasks, contributing to productivity and enhancing customer service, especially when combined with methodologies like Six Sigma.

I don't have visibility on setup costs, but renewal discussions are underway. Currently, costs involve paying a fixed amount for licenses rather than a consumption-based model. This contrasts with other providers like Microsoft, which uses a subscription model.

For instance, Microsoft already has Microsoft Copilot Studio, making them key players in this realm. If someone wants an RP bot connected to CoPilot or GPT, Automation Anywhere requires setup and authentication. In contrast, Microsoft offers seamless connectivity, integrating RPA to GenAI with minimal effort.

Good things aside, on the other hand, what would I like to see improved or enhanced in Automation Anywhere apart from the AI functionality that we discussed previously? I'll give it a seven as they are among the top competitors. Their offering of diverse automation capabilities in one platform is notable, but there are still areas for improvement.

I work for a healthcare company in the pharmacovigilance sector, where we are automating business processes. One key process is case processing, which involves identifying adverse events from drugs, vaccines, or medical devices. These adverse events are reported through various channels like call centers and emails. Currently, data from these sources is manually entered into a drug safety database. We are automating this data entry and the subsequent quality and medical reviews. This automation aims to reduce the workforce from approximately 5,000 to 1,000 employees, primarily by streamlining these processes using Automation Anywhere software.

To reduce maintenance and streamline operations, we have transitioned to a cloud-based subscription model. We are utilizing Automation 360, a subscription-based automation solution, and have also adopted RPA as a service, leveraging pre-built bots offered by Automation Anywhere, some of which are free while others require payment.

Implementing Automation Anywhere has brought significant improvements by automating repetitive processes previously handled by a large team. This automation has reduced the workforce requirement and allowed for attended and unattended bot implementation. Consequently, human errors have decreased, the quality of deliverables has improved, and timelines have been accelerated. Previously, delays in task completion resulted in penalties for the company, but this issue has been resolved. Automation Anywhere has enabled faster processing of cases, marking a significant positive change in the company's operations.

AI is being used to automate the case intake process, which involves analyzing structured and unstructured documents like emails, articles, and scientific papers. Previously, this task was time-consuming, requiring staff to manually search documents for key information. The process has been significantly accelerated by implementing Automation Anywhere's IQ Bot, with its cognitive automation, AI integration, and natural language processing capabilities. The software automatically highlights crucial details like patient information, product specifics, and adverse events, enabling reviewers to assess document relevance quickly. This automation has reduced review time from 30 minutes per document to five to ten seconds, allowing a greater volume of literature to be processed. Furthermore, the NLP feature automatically identifies and justifies the presence of specific criteria within the documents. By integrating Automation Anywhere into their internal tool, the organization has reduced the workforce needed for this process from over 100 people to 12-15, resulting in increased efficiency, faster turnaround times, and a more manageable workload.

Automation Anywhere offers a user-friendly platform with a drag-and-drop interface, making it easy for business users with limited technical skills to implement RPA solutions. The platform provides a complete suite of tools, including task automation, cognitive automation using IQ Bot, and bot insights and analytics. While embedded with AI capabilities, the platform remains accessible to users without deep technical knowledge. Users should familiarize themselves with the available features, including built-in AI capabilities for handling various document types, and explore the Bot Store marketplace for pre-built bots that can accelerate development. Automation Anywhere enables rapid scaling with cloud-hosted architecture and prioritizes security with GDPR compliance, audit trails, and role-based access.

Initially, integrating Automation Copilot with our daily applications proved challenging. However, subsequent updates have simplified the process. While it previously functioned with attended bots but not unattended ones, expanded API capabilities now allow for greater compatibility with third-party applications. This enhanced functionality enables us to emulate various tasks and seamlessly integrate with systems like Salesforce, SAP, and Oracle. We have successfully implemented Automation Copilot for data entry, updates, and, most significantly, report generation, resulting in improved efficiency and productivity.

Automation Copilot has significantly increased our productivity. Integrating our systems will allow for seamless data transfer, eliminating the need for manual intervention and preventing quality issues. Tasks will be completed automatically and in real-time, increasing productivity and reducing the time spent on manual work. This eliminates the need for batch processing and ensures that everything happens instantly.

Over time, we have integrated numerous products with Automation Anywhere, leveraging their REST API for seamless data flow. This has enabled successful integrations with Salesforce, SAP, Oracle's Argus, and five of our seven internal products, particularly with Automation Anywhere's cognitive automation capabilities. As long as Automation Anywhere provides the REST API, we can integrate any application or third-party service, facilitating effortless data transfer between various tools.

The time savings are valuable.

The learning curve for Automation Anywhere is steep, especially for advanced features like IQ Bot and API automation, which require technical expertise. While basic automation is relatively easy, the platform's documentation and training materials are not comprehensive, making it challenging to master the more complex functionalities. Compared to UiPath, which offers extensive resources and support, Automation Anywhere's limited resources contribute to a steeper learning curve for those seeking to utilize its advanced capabilities.

From a business perspective, Automation Anywhere is expensive compared to other tools like UiPath, making it unsuitable for small or medium-sized businesses. It requires robust systems to run efficiently and previously had limitations integrating with legacy systems, though they are improving this with REST API support. Additionally, community support is slow and unhelpful for critical issues. While they offer IQ Bot for unstructured data, it can only automate around 50 percent of such processes, requiring manual intervention. Although Automation Anywhere supports customization, it is limited. These are key areas where Automation Anywhere could improve.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for four years.

Despite Automation Anywhere being resource-intensive, in my four years of experience using it, I have found it to be a highly stable system that has never crashed.

Automation Anywhere offers impressive automation capabilities at scale. From a product standpoint, it is highly effective and achieves its purpose well. Automation Anywhere is a strong choice for enterprise applications due to its robust functionality and cloud-based version. While the portal could be improved, the product itself is excellent and, if chosen strategically, can streamline numerous processes.

Technical support response times are slow. While we can escalate critical issues, their carelessness with other matters, especially those impacting business priorities, is a concern. Their slow pace and occasional irresponsibility demonstrate a lack of respect for our time.

Neutral

As a UiPath certified architect and business analyst with extensive experience in UiPath and Automation Anywhere, I find UiPath to be the superior solution for most companies. While both offer cloud-native capabilities, UiPath boasts a more user-friendly interface, requiring less coding knowledge. Its AI Fabric platform provides extensive machine learning capabilities, surpassing Automation Anywhere's limited AI integration. UiPath also excels in bot management and orchestration, offering a user-friendly approach and robust capabilities. Furthermore, UiPath provides stronger security and compliance features, superior third-party integration, and greater pricing flexibility, making it accessible to companies of all sizes, unlike Automation Anywhere, which is often only affordable for mid to large companies. Although Automation Anywhere offers decent cognitive automation, UiPath's ease of use, AI capabilities, and flexible pricing make it the more versatile and comprehensive choice.

The initial deployment was complex, requiring determining the bot type, attended or unattended and bundle handling strategies for multiple bot deployments. This process, driven mainly by configuration and orchestration, can be time-consuming for those without a technical background. Familiarity with the system streamlines deployment, while newcomers or those with limited technical expertise may find it more challenging.

Automation Anywhere is expensive, making it more suitable for enterprise organizations.

I would rate Automation Anywhere eight out of ten.

The benefits of Automation Anywhere projects aren't immediate. Building and implementing a successful automation system involves several stages: proof of concept, pilot process, and finally, production rollout. This process typically takes two to three months due to the necessary development, testing, and refinement. However, once automation is in production, the improvements will be significant and immediately apparent.

In a highly regulated industry with over 10,000 employees, traditional RPA faced strong resistance due to concerns about headcount reduction. To overcome this, we adopted a cognitive automation approach, integrating machine learning capabilities from Automation Anywhere into existing applications. This minimized disruption and ensured a smoother transition. By embedding cognitive automation within familiar and validated systems, we achieved production with minimal resistance. This strategy also allows the system to learn user input through reinforcement learning, adapting to expectations based on feedback and a reward/penalty system. Therefore, we prioritize cognitive automation integrated within our existing products rather than relying solely on a separate RPA suite, especially given the challenges of implementing RPA in a large organization within a highly regulated industry.

Because we use Automation Anywhere in the cloud, they manage all upgrades and provide a defined schedule. We receive regular emails about upcoming upgrades, including the specific date and time. We can communicate any concerns about potential business impacts, and they provide clarity and assurance that upgrades will not disrupt deployed bots. This ensures our work remains unaffected during the upgrade process, which they handle very efficiently.

The bots require maintenance on our end to ensure smooth operation. This includes monitoring their uptime, examining audit trails for failures, and periodically checking their performance. While Automation Anywhere handles regular software updates and maintenance, we are responsible for maintaining the business processes the bots support. This involves ongoing support and ensuring the bots function correctly. If a bot fails, we are responsible for investigating the cause and restoring it to functionality, as we understand the critical role each bot plays in our operations.

To successfully implement Automation Anywhere, prioritize hiring an experienced consultant to provide initial training and guidance. This expert can efficiently onboard other team members, ensuring a smooth transition and maximizing the software's potential. Their expertise will be invaluable in identifying suitable bots from the bot store, even if they require some customization to align with the company's unique processes. This approach saves time and resources compared to developing bots from scratch and leverages existing solutions for faster and more effective automation.

The use cases for Automation Anywhere are industry-agnostic and sector-agnostic, allowing for automation of processes that involve human interaction, mundane tasks, and large volumes. With the help of AI, we can now automate a lot of unstructured data, which wasn't possible before, so it's not limited to any specific sector or process. Whether it's HR, marketing, sales, operations, or engineering design, any of those can be considered for automation.

The main benefits of Automation Anywhere include improved operational efficiency, enhanced productivity savings, increased cost savings, new revenue streams, and a reduction in regulatory human errors. These are some of the major benefits it provides. For example, if a human takes one hour to perform a transaction that involves navigating through multiple systems and inputting data, Automation Anywhere can reduce that time significantly. The bot can complete the task in about 20 minutes, saving roughly 40 minutes per transaction, which translates to a 60%-66% time saving, enhancing overall productivity and cost efficiency.

They have introduced numerous AI-related enhancements in their product, making them the first among their competitors to develop a reasoning engine. Their PRE reasoning engine is particularly noteworthy, and they have quickly integrated Generative AI into their document automation product. Additionally, they offer a variety of other AI features and have designed the platform to be cloud-native. The AI features they have implemented stand out; they are indeed leading the pack. This strategy is impressive and effectively empowers their product with a wide range of AI capabilities, which are increasingly important in today’s tech landscape, especially with the rise of AI, Generative AI, and Agentic AI.

Automation Anywhere also provides Agentic AI-related APIs and is currently testing Agentic process automation in its early stages. In terms of product capabilities and AI integration, I would definitely rate them a ten out of ten. They are the fastest to reach this level of advancement compared to others, who seem to be lagging behind. For example, Blue Prism is progressing quite slowly, and while Power Automate has some AI features, they do not match the scale that Automation Anywhere has achieved.

Its pricing definitely needs to be more competitive. When licensing costs are high, we cannot use this tool for automation. Instead, we might opt for a lower-cost tool like Power Automate which is 50% less expensive.

Power Automate offers very seamless integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure cloud services and other Microsoft products. In contrast, Automation Anywhere has to rely on external LLMs for integrations. If Automation Anywhere can improve the ease of these integrations and provide them natively within the platform, it would greatly enhance its appeal.

I have been working with Automation Anywhere for over the last eight years, although not extensively in my current role. In previous journeys, I have used it for around three to four years. Currently, we use Automation Anywhere, but not extensively.

At this moment, I'm not sure about the stability of Automation Anywhere, but in previous experiences, I faced challenges with stability, which required ticket submissions for support. We encountered several challenges related to platform and technical issues. For instance, sessions would occasionally get disconnected unexpectedly. In those cases, we would raise a ticket with the vendor to get support. However, since we haven't been using the system extensively, we haven't faced many issues.

All these automation platforms, including Automation Anywhere, are highly scalable; depending on volume, you can adjust the number of bots, scaling instantaneously in the cloud. For on-prem solutions, one must ensure they have the necessary infrastructure ready for scaling.

While it is easy to scale with Automation Anywhere, I have not experienced extensive scaling in my previous encounters. The maximum number of bots we had was around 20.

I haven't raised many tickets recently to evaluate their technical support, but I know they have a dedicated partner manager. It has been good in my previous experience.

Positive

We are also using UiPath, Blue Prism, Power Automate, and the Microsoft stack. Mainly, the license costs of UiPath, Automation Anywhere, and Blue Prism are high, so we use Power Automate and Power Platform heavily.

It is generally easy to deploy. We use Automation Anywhere with both AWS and Azure.

Maintenance is indeed required for Automation Anywhere; you have to follow the vendor's product patches and version upgrades to keep it maintained.

Upgrading Automation Anywhere follows a standard process that they provide detailed instructions for, and we adhere to those guidelines. The upgrade process feels similar to any other software platform; I don't find anything particularly complex or different about it.

There is a separate team for bot maintenance, and if the bots are stable, maintenance needs tend to be low. However, if issues arise, maintenance efforts can significantly increase.

The return on investment from Automation Anywhere varies based on the business case and the benefits versus costs involved; for simpler RPA use cases, ROI can typically be achieved within a year.

Pricing needs to be more competitive, both in terms of licenses and overall expenses. This is crucial because many use cases cannot be automated if it isn't cost-effective.

We have not extensively tried Automation Anywhere with business users because they have added a lot of AI features that are difficult for them to understand. We also do not want to encourage business users to create automations that do not comply with regulations, compliance, and best practices, which presents a risk. Therefore, we've only utilized it within the CoE team for now. 

For existing developers, the learning curve for Automation Anywhere is easy to pick up. However, for business users, it might take some time, especially if they lack a programming background.

I have heard about the Automation Co-Pilot, and it sounds very powerful and useful. The Co-Pilot can generate code based on a natural language prompt, which is a substantial feature as it can reduce development time by 30%-40%, allowing faster shipment of code to production. 

In terms of integration, Automation Anywhere acts as a tool used to develop automation that connects to various systems, such as SAP, Excel, Outlook, and web applications. It doesn't integrate with other solutions directly but helps in automating processes that involve multiple systems. The platform provides capabilities for building various integrations, and that is part of what they sell. Automation Anywhere is fundamentally an automation platform that enables performance across workflows, APIs, business applications, and documents. API integration is possible with Automation Anywhere, but if specific APIs do not already exist, there is no way to create a new API directly within the platform. For that, one needs to create a new API using languages such as Java, Python, or C# before integrating it with Automation Anywhere.

Our organization places high priority on automation and AI. We are using the Microsoft ecosystem for many of our use cases.

For organizations considering Automation Anywhere, I advise that if you are focusing on AI features such as Generative AI or agentic process automation, it's a great choice as they are front runners in incorporating these functionalities early on. However, if licensing costs are a concern, the Microsoft stack would be more beneficial.

I would rate Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten.

We are into the financial industry. We have 14 different business units using Automation Anywhere, including HR, digital finance, pensions, and similar areas, primarily within the financial sector.

It's easy to use, and with less experience, anyone with the business knowledge can automate easily. We can see that it's beneficial to integrate other applications and use the API to trigger any of the Automation Anywhere bots from the client-specific application.

The monitoring and reporting aspects are currently not very standardized, specifically regarding the on-premises setup. I’m not entirely sure if the cloud version has the necessary capabilities. If something goes wrong or is about to go wrong, it doesn’t help to only rely on dashboards or monitoring tools to assess the situation.

Additionally, businesses typically want detailed reporting. Right now, we lack the ability to monitor transaction-level statuses and tracking, which is a significant limitation.

Their support also needs improvement.

I have been using the solution for around eight years.

Performance-wise, it is okay now. Stability-wise, if they add new features and AI-related stuff, there are hiccups in each release. They used to do monthly releases as well as quarterly releases. Clients aren't confident due to issues in each release.

I would rate it an eight out of ten for scalability.

Technical support also has a pricing model. With non-premium support, it is hard to get immediate responses. Premium support responds immediately. 

I would rate their support a five out of ten as the resolution is delayed.

Positive

I have used UiPath and Power Automate. Automation Anywhere is user-friendly for business users, while UiPath is more suited for programmers due to complexity. Power Automate has powerful document automation. Pricing is a drawback for Automation Anywhere compared to Power Automate.

The setup can be pretty easy unless there are multiple components integrated or organization-specific standards. 

For a single server in a regular control room, it may take a couple of hours. When implementing a control room and IQ Bot, it may take approximately five hours.

Usually, one person is required to maintain our infrastructure, making it easy to upgrade and resolve any issues. I do all infrastructure-related things in my organization.

For maintenance, we need downtime from the business, usually on weekends for prod, and a platform outage for non-prod environments.

When comparing automation tools like UiPath, Power Automate, and Automation Anywhere, Power Automate often comes out as the most cost-effective option. Recently, I've noticed that Automation Anywhere has been charging separately for its various components, such as APIs, agentic processes, and business document automation. This pricing model has led many clients to reconsider their choices, especially those with limited budgets.

I've observed a significant trend where not only financial clients but also smaller businesses are migrating back to Power Automate due to its affordability. Power Automate offers a premium plan starting at just $25 per user, making it a more accessible choice for many organizations.

 I would rate this solution an eight out of ten because of their support.

We have a lot of use cases for Automation Anywhere. We have some use cases at the customer experience department, we have some for the HR team, and we have more than a few for our billing department. We have quite a few across our different business units.

We have not yet used Agentic AI. One of the main reasons I wanted to come to AA Imagine was to see the demo. What has been stopping us from choosing AI is our company's governance aspect and getting the approvals.

AI governance is quite important for my company in general because I work for a government contracting company. That is one of the challenges that we would need to solve before we integrate any AI capabilities.

What I appreciate the most about Automation Anywhere is how easy it is to use. One thing I noticed in the beginning when we first started using Automation Anywhere was how quickly we were able to learn it. It is very simple and straightforward to use, which is probably the main advantage.

The simplicity of Automation Anywhere has benefited us as we have been able to train our internal employees. It has been very easy to train someone internally versus hiring someone outside of the company.

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with Automation Anywhere. The UI is pretty straightforward. However, the customer service could be improved.

I have been using Automation Anywhere in my company for two and a half years.

It can be improved. When we have issues or problems with the software, which is not common, that is one area that could be better. We have had issues in the past where we have had problems with the application, and it has taken a while for someone to get back to us. Overall, we are pretty happy with the application.

Neutral

We were not using another solution prior to Automation Anywhere. This was the first automation tool that we integrated at our company.

My experience with the bot deployment is pretty straightforward. I have an RPA admin who takes care of the deployment. While I cannot speak on his behalf, I would say that the deployment process, from what I know, is pretty straightforward. It is not anything too complicated or complex.

The main challenge we were trying to solve by bringing Automation Anywhere was automating different processes and manual tasks that our employees do. We wanted to help the company save money, and we have been able to do that.

It's justified because we have saved quite a bit of money at the company and many manual hours. Overall, it justifies the cost.

When I joined, my company had already decided on Automation Anywhere. I do not know what other tool they had in mind, but this was the only one.

I would rate Automation Anywhere a nine out of ten. I am happy with the company and my Automation Anywhere journey. There have not been any major issues or problems since we started using it about two and a half years ago. Our leadership at the company is very happy. Our RPA team always gets recognized, and it is because of this tool. This tool has helped us significantly.

I am from the Mechanical Department at a college of engineering. We utilize Automation Anywhere with our students in the mechanical block. I am using it for educational purposes, and we are providing hands-on experiences.

Automation Anywhere is very useful. With Automation Anywhere, we can do any task in the easiest way. If there is any repeated task, then we can replace it with Automation Anywhere to the same work in a short period of time. It helps minimize the work. 

Automation Anywhere is very helpful and interesting to learn for students. It is very user-friendly, so they can easily learn it.

Automation Anywhere is very easy to learn for people who do not have any technical skills. It is very user-friendly. There is no learning difficulty. We can easily drag and drop the required components and make the model we want. We can automate and deploy a function. After one or two attempts, it becomes very clear. It does not take a long time to understand it. We can understand a simple process within thirty minutes, whereas a complex process can take two to four hours.

Automation Co-Pilot is an advanced feature that helps with finding out the next step. It also provides information about more efficient usage. Both Automation Anywhere and Co-Pilot improve productivity. 

Automation Anywhere saves time. The attendance automation that we have saves about two hours each day. We are also able to easily scrape data from structured and unstructured files and write it in the CSV format. IQ Bot does this very well. 

The AI collaboration is the most impressive feature of Automation Anywhere. We can use IQ Bot to extract data from structured and unstructured sources into a CSV file. It is very useful, and my university uses it for the attendance system. With AI integration, we can easily take attendance. 

Other features include easy deployment and automation of repetitive tasks. If we want to automate any repetitive task, we can record it, which is very useful.

It is secure and user-friendly. Automation Anywhere minimizes human effort and time, facilitates learning, and supports automated tasks efficiently.

There are areas of improvement needed, such as complex decision-making skills. When updates are made, the IQ Bot's actions can be affected, leading to decision-making failures. If it had the ability to make decisions in complex situations, the bot would perform more smoothly. More advanced decision-making skills are needed for improvement.

I have been using Automation Anywhere for more than two years.

Automation Anywhere is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

Its scalability is very good. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

In the mechanical department, we have more than 130 students. On average, there are 700 users. 

Technical support is easy to access with various communication channels, including emails and personal calls. However, the community forum is sometimes unresponsive. Despite this, personal calls and quick fixes are very useful, providing good technical support.

Neutral

I have experience with Blue Prism from four years ago. Initially, I used both Blue Prism and Automation Anywhere, but Blue Prism required coding, making it challenging. Automation Anywhere's no-code environment made it easier, and I preferred it. My students also favor it for its user-friendliness and affordability compared to Blue Prism. Automation Anywhere allows for easy drag-and-drop actions and is cost-effective for medium and large-scale enterprises.

The cost is high for small-scale businesses but it is fine for medium and large enterprises. Its high licensing cost may affect small-scale businesses. Reducing licensing costs would benefit many users.

Learning Automation Anywhere prepares our students for a better future because the future belongs to RPA Automation. It helps build their automation skills, and we also provide certification to them after learning Automation Anywhere. 

It involves understanding the structure, and once two or three models are deployed, it becomes easier. Using Automation Anywhere is more straightforward than other RPA tools. Bot deployment typically takes three to four hours depending on the process. A simple process can take about thirty minutes and complex ones take two to four hours. There is no time wasted during deployment.

Bots require updates only if there are any changes. Generally, five to ten minutes are enough to maintain the bots. It does not take a lot of time.

I would recommend Automation Anywhere to others. I actively create awareness about it in our classes and recommend it to other institutions for future RPA developers. 

I would rate Automation Anywhere a ten out of ten.