Glossary

RPA (Robotic Process Automation)

Automation software that emulates human use of a GUI — clicking buttons, filling forms, copying data across legacy systems that lack APIs. Increasingly being replaced by AI agents + direct API integration.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is automation that mimics how a human uses graphical user interfaces — clicking, typing, copying data between screens. The major vendors (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, Microsoft Power Automate) all originated in the 2010s as a way to automate workflows in legacy enterprise systems that lacked APIs.

How RPA differs from modern AI automation:

  • RPA is brittle. UI changes break the bot. Every time a vendor updates their app, you re-record the bot.
  • RPA doesn't reason. It follows recorded scripts, not adaptive decisions.
  • RPA is for legacy. Modern stacks have APIs, so direct integration is cleaner.
  • RPA + AI is the new pitch. Most RPA vendors have added AI agent layers, but the foundation is still GUI-clicking.
RPA still has a place: regulated industries with 20-year-old mainframe systems that genuinely can't expose APIs. For modern API-accessible stacks, AI agents + direct integration is faster, cheaper, and more reliable.

Example

An insurance company has a 1990s claims system with no API. RPA bots log in with credentials, navigate menus, copy claim data, paste into a spreadsheet, and email the result. When the insurance company finally upgrades to a modern claims platform with an API, the RPA bots get retired and replaced with direct API integration.

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