The Technology

UiPath’s stated long-term goal is to provide an automation platform to enable a “Fully Automated Enterprise.” It’s an ambitious goal, but the tech stack/platform has certainly provided a solid step toward it. The extensive use of serverless, self-hosted, orchestrated RPA bots is at the core and central to the company. Surrounding those bots and connecting to them are a range of AI modules, from document capture to task mining. Fortunately, the UiPath Automation Platform leverages low-code functionality to program and manage the complex activities.

Diving a bit deeper into the UiPath platform, the core infrastructure is Kubernetes utilizing Longhorn storage. Sitting atop that is the combined UiPath product set, including Document Understanding, AI Center, Orchestration, Task Mining, Automation Hub, etc. The essential addition is the Document Understanding module that the firm has focused on building out over the past couple of years. Document Understanding is essentially intelligent document processing (IDP), incorporating the OCR, NLP, and forms recognition elements common to such systems. It’s what you would use to automate the processing of an invoice or contract (see Figure 1).

It is impressive that UiPath has built most of this functionality itself rather than relying on third-party software. This is not traditional capture functionality; instead, it is modern computer vision (deep learning) oriented capture functionality.

Moreover, it’s not just document capture; it comes complete with the ability to set rules and create templates. Tie this into the automation capabilities that UiPath is known for, and you have a platform that can not only scale but also handle complex workflows. Though there are still situations where a traditional business process management (BPM) toolset will be required, the current UiPath capabilities have come a long way from pure RPA. UiPath can now handle “long workflows” and utilize its orchestration capabilities to manage straight-through processing of complex activities. This makes UiPath at least comparable to the Appian or Salesforce platforms, though it is different in some regards.

Where UiPath aims to differentiate itself, and where it is true to its roots, is in the belief that robots should automate all repetitive tasks – while also recognizing the market reality that such a pervasive approach to automation cannot be undertaken purely at a technical level. Instead, it should be driven and controlled by end users and tied to the employee experience (EX). To achieve that, UiPath has invested heavily in task and process mining by building on its savvy 2019 acquisitions of Process Gold and Step Shot. It has embedded mining capabilities into the platform for:

• Business analysis and process improvement
• Monitoring and ongoing management of processes and activities 

Every automation platform ultimately reveals its roots; some are BPM-centric, others API-centric. UiPath’s roots are firmly in the world of RPA, and the automation at scale of repetitive tasks remains their focus. Yet combining RPA with advanced orchestration, task and process mining, and IDP provides a sophisticated, low-code development platform that spans a range from simple task automation to complex process management.

Finally, considering the breadth and depth of the UiPath Platform, its pricing is fair and comparable to its competitors. Buying into the UiPath vision also brings connection and support from a community of more than 2 million users and developers.