What is our primary use case?
Its main use cases that we have implemented are across the firm for different business groups, including finance and accounting, HR, talent acquisition, risk management, and independence.
How has it helped my organization?
Being an early adopter of Automation Anywhere puts us ahead in the transformation game. We have seen Automation Anywhere collaborating directly with us to solve complex problems that aren't easy to address out of the box, creating a significant impact.
What is most valuable?
Some of the key features of Automation Anywhere include the simplicity that enables developers to build bots very quickly in a standard delivery fashion. We have a framework developed that enables consistency irrespective of the person developing it, and our gated delivery model helps us meet those milestones and standards consistently. This helps, along with the great features that Automation Anywhere provides for self-review of code, making the development of bots easier and faster when it adheres to a particular pattern. Additionally, it gives us robust means to track metrics once the Automations are deployed into production so that we have a good handle on errors, receive feedback, remediate, and keep the bots and workflows running in production for our business.
We are part of a big transformation program within our firm, and what we have understood over the past several years is that our technology needs to evolve as the needs of the business do. The RPA aspect of Automation Anywhere's platform can only take us so far. Agentic is a game-changer due to the AI disruption that's happening, and Automation Anywhere has been at the forefront of incorporating the best of AI into the product.
Agentic AI can be used today out of the box with minimal configuration, and it now solves end-to-end processes compared to the standalone jobs that RPA could do previously. Consequently, we have faster, better solutions that we can deliver to our businesses. In the age of agentic AI, there are two key challenges we face. One is on the delivery side within our CoE, where there is a bit of a learning curve for upskilling our development team so they understand what this technology has to offer and how to best use it. Once they are aware, Automation Anywhere provides great resources, including a strong curriculum to help developers get upskilled.
The CoE plays a very critical role, as we want to establish a factory-like model that follows best practices and processes. The bots developed by the team provide consistent value and a very good business user experience. The CoE matures over time; it's not set up in a day, as we are constantly learning and evolving to meet challenges like introducing newer integrations or adapting to a changing organizational landscape.
What needs improvement?
One key feature for improvement I have been providing feedback on through the MVP program is enhancing natural language conversation to action. The Automation Anywhere product team is actively putting this feature into their roadmap, which I believe is crucial. Features such as UI agents and Orchestrator APIs will help alleviate the current bottlenecks we face. We foresee a future where deterministic rules don't need to be defined; rather, a process-specific skill should be laid out generally. I think the product team aligns with this vision, and these areas should be highlighted for the team to focus on, delivering features that drive tremendous value.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Automation Anywhere for more than five years now at the firm, and we continue to expand our implementation across various business groups.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability, Automation Anywhere meets our expectations, as we haven't experienced any product-specific issues over the past several years.
While some issues may arise on the network side, they are not specifically related to Automation Anywhere's platform.
I haven't encountered any significant bugs on the product platform that led to production ecosystem failures. Therefore, from a stability and reliability perspective, we can remain confident that the product performs as an enterprise solution and meets expected standards.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From a scaling standpoint, we challenge ourselves with higher goals driving more impact while continuing at a rapid pace on our transformation journey fueled by agentic AI.
We are confident in the product's capabilities and features, and the key lies in how we ramp up effectively. With a robust presence from our intake team driving demand, all we need to do is embrace it and start scaling, especially with the newly unlocked agentic use cases that come with additional features.
We have our footprint across the whole firm with approximately 250-plus Automations deployed in production as of today, and the program continues to build further.
How are customer service and support?
Automation Anywhere's support has been outstanding, as we have a dedicated Technical Account Manager and Customer Success Manager who we engage with weekly.
They are always available to address pressing needs and questions, and we haven't faced challenges in this area. This strong collaboration and regular communication allow us to make quick decisions, solve problems rapidly, and keep advancing.
From a support standpoint, the strong ticket mechanism we can implement gives us the ability to raise severity, and even when we do so, we maintain direct contact with Automation Anywhere, receiving expedited assistance, which is invaluable for our collaboration.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have evaluated several competitors in the market. Automation Anywhere stands out due to the value, feature set, and price point, which aligns with our firm's legal and compliance reasons for our decision.
Automation Anywhere consistently ranks at the top, matching our vision and strategy for implementing transformative solutions. Although there are various platforms available, such as the Microsoft ecosystem focused on personal productivity, we often have to engage in hybrid implementations using different tools for end-to-end solutions. However, Automation Anywhere remains our chosen platform.
How was the initial setup?
We have an on-prem primary setup, however, we also have cloud-based integrations for some of their advanced features, like document automation. We are currently in the process of going full cloud via migration. That's on our roadmap. And once we get there, since we know the strategy and vision with agentic, we want to prioritize as a firm to get to that model quickly and then just have one pattern to support.
What was our ROI?
In the past five years, we have deployed hundreds of bots, with our numbers continuing to grow by 100%.
We are effectively doubling the bots deployed to production each year, and the savings are easily in the range of 150 to 200,000 hours annually, which we give back to our businesses for more meaningful work.
However, the impact extends beyond just those numbers, as we are not only saving time for our resources on repetitive tasks, we are also considering indirect savings and accuracy improvements. Therefore, the return on investment is quite high based on what we have observed.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is fair given the current advancements in AI, which involve a substantial amount of research.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, this solution rates a nine.
I would highly recommend checking out their product website to explore the features and the commitment they have to the agentic enhancements.
Automation Anywhere isn't just a product or platform vendor; it embodies a whole community. They offer excellent engagement resources, including programs such as MVP and Pathfinder, along with numerous initiatives for learning.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.