Humanity has a long-held dream of enlisting robots to take over the mundane. For over a hundred years, science fiction has conjured mechanical beings to perform the yawn-inducing tasks that waste hours of human productivity every day. As artificial intelligence makes the leap from sci-fi to cy-phy, digital colleagues are hiring themselves out. Finally, bots can help their human counterparts focus on the fun instead of sweating the details.

“The moment we start automating every process that can be automated, we start using computers for what they were designed for,” said Ankur Kothari (pictured), co-founder and chief revenue officer of Automation Anywhere Inc. “[And] we can do what we’re good at, solving complex problems using our creativity.”

Kothari spoke with spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Automation Anywhere Imagine event in New York City. They discussed the evolution of robotic process automation and Automation Anywhere’s vision and strategy for the future (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

RPA benefits are more than productivity

Bots are generally viewed as productivity tools that enable humans to perform tasks faster. But adopting automation in the workplace has more wide reaching results, according to Kothari.

“As you scale in the journey and you onboard more digital workers, digital colleagues as we like to call it, you find that the conversation in your organization changes from productivity to progress,” Kothari said. “It’s not just about productivity. It’s truly about progressing your team, your company, your industry, [and] your customers forward.”

Investors are showing interest as the potential of RPA begins to become understood, and the field is “red hot” right now. RPA expenditures are expected to reach almost $9 billion in the next five years, according to Grand View Research Inc.

Riding the investment wave, Automation Anywhere has received over $500 million in funding, thanks to big-name backing from companies such as the Goldman Sachs Group Inc., General Atlantic Service Company LP, and the Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp.

The company has used the capital to expand in three ways, according to Kothari. First is geographically, and Automation Anywhere is now almost everywhere, with a presence in over 30 countries worldwide. An expanded partner ecosystem is the second area of focus. The third is widening the product stack so that it is able to “automate any process that can be automated,” Kothari said.

More than money, RPA is a passion project

As chief revenue officer, Kothari is obviously concerned with the bottom line. But more than making money, Automation Anywhere has “fallen in love” with the challenge of ushering in a new economy. This passion for automation is the impetus behind several innovations at the company.

Automation Anywhere University offers free training and certification for developers, allowing them to experience working with and building bots, and encourages their creativity. “A good idea can come from anywhere or anyone,” Kothari stated.

Another innovation is the Bot Store. This provides a platform for developers to offer their bots for use in the market and encourages invention and out-of-the box projects and problem solving.

Upping the excitement for RPA development are high-profile activities, such as the Bot Games held at Automation Anywhere Imagine 2019. Close to 300 developers participated in workshops and challenges during the games, building bots on the fly and competing against one another.

“We believe that when we bring all these people together and we give them a problem, genius comes out,” Kothari concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Automation Anywhere Imagine event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Automation Anywhere Imagine event. Neither Automation Anywhere Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.) 

Photo: SiliconANGLE