Robotic process automation is the process of automating various tasks by deploying robots that emulate human action. RPA or robotic process automation tools help you build and deploy these robots so that you can streamline various business processes and reduce the dependency on knowledge workers for repetitive tasks.
Updated October 2026. Tool descriptions are based on each vendor’s published information; features and pricing change often, so check the vendor’s site before you buy.
Use cases of robotic process automation
RPA has become one of the most widely adopted automation technologies. In Deloitte’s global intelligent automation survey of 441 executives (published in 2021), 78% of respondents said they had already implemented RPA and a further 16% planned to within three years. Small and midsize businesses use it too, often through low-code tools that are cheaper and easier to adopt than early enterprise RPA. Here are some popular use cases of robotic process automation.
- Customer Service
- Invoice Processing
- Productivity Enhancement
- Employee Onboarding
- Payroll
Let’s go through an example of customer service RPA to understand how it actually helps a business.
Let’s say company A receives 70 service requests from customers per day on an average. If the average time of interpreting a request, categorizing it, and solving the problem is 20 minutes, 70 requests would take 1400 minutes of human engagement. Now, this should not be an issue for a large company with plenty of resources, but company A being a small business struggles to support their customers while also handling other tasks or processing new customers.
Enter customer service robotic process automation. You train a bot to categorize all 70 of the requests. Some of those requests might require human intervention, the rest can be fulfilled by a robotic workflow.
Depending on the category of the request, the RPA triggers a series of automated actions including conversing with the customer about the progress of the task.
Company A saves hundreds of human hours per month and establishes a more efficient customer service workflow which in turn helps them retain more customers.
Robotic process automation is an expansive industry and its use cases are constantly breaching the boundaries of IT and SaaS.
Robotic process automation tools you can benefit from in 2026
In this section, we will go through five robotic process automation tools, talk about their key features, and how they can benefit your business.
BotPath
BotPath is a robotic process automation tool from 500apps. Software marketplace listings describe it as a SaaS RPA tool with a drag-and-drop workflow builder, designed to help you build bots and automate workflows without much coding.
Check availability first: in October 2026, 500apps’ website said the company is winding down its product suite “over the next 90 days” and moving customers to a new platform, 500agents. If you are choosing an RPA tool today, confirm BotPath’s current status with 500apps, or consider the established tools below.
UiPath
UiPath is a robotic process automation tool that focuses on quick and effective digitization of business processes. It comes with a drag and drop interface which allows you to place automated workflows with minimal or no knowledge of the underlying processes.
UiPath can help you with tasks like data entry, data scraping, email marketing, and other repetitive accumulative tasks.
Simplicity is prioritised in UiPath, it’s a tool that helps you hit the ground running with RPA.
Blue Prism
Blue Prism, now SS&C Blue Prism after SS&C Technologies completed its acquisition in March 2022, offers an intelligent automation platform that covers identifying processes that can be automated, building automations, and running “digital workers” that work alongside people.
Blue Prism helps you create an AI-driven customer experience while also providing ways for your existing employees to augment their capabilities with AI. You can use Blue Prism to free up knowledge workers from mundane tasks and focus their hours on profit building exercises.
Automation Anywhere
Automation Anywhere is an automation platform that offers a wide range of capabilities around process automation. You can start with process discovery where the platform analyzes your existing processes and offers recommendations as to improve them.
With the RPA workspace feature you can easily deploy automated workflows to perform repetitive tasks.
The document automation feature helps you turn documents into actionable insights.
You can integrate Automation Anywhere with your applications and business systems using its interfaces and connectors.
Automation Anywhere comes with a solid foundation in machine learning and natural language processing creating reliable process automation capabilities.
Microsoft Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate is an automation service for businesses of all sizes. Its RPA component, desktop flows (Power Automate for desktop), records and replays actions such as mouse clicks and keystrokes, so you can automate tasks in older applications that have no API or connector. Flows can run attended, with a person present, or unattended on a Windows machine or virtual machine.
You can deploy this tool with relative ease and it comes with a range of integrations to help you use it for various kinds of processes.
To conclude
The robotic process automation market is maturing and there are plenty of options to choose from for businesses. The key to making the right choice is to understand your own requirements, try the tools on a real process, and compare total costs (licences, bots and maintenance) before you commit.
