The bot takeover may have initiated in the back offices across the enterprise landscape, but the scope of robotics processing automation goes much further than that. As is the case with many startups, UiPath Inc.’s introductory product lineup targeted finance departments, automating a heap of useful tasks to curb human error in calculations and other business operations. But that’s only the beginning for UiPath as the company sets out to balance its record growth with product expansion to apply artificial intelligence far beyond the back office.

“I think you’ve seen the products announced here adding to the portfolio, giving us incremental [total addressable market] so we can grow across the space,” said Marie Myers (pictured), chief financial officer of UiPath. “I think growing both down the [computing stack] and up the stack is critically important for us as we think forward to the future … we just don’t want to be a pure robotics process automation company. We want to look across AI, down the stack into process mining.”

Myers spoke with Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the UiPath Forward event in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed UiPath’s rapid rise to the top of the RPA market, how the lead can be maintained, and where the CFO’s role fits into this strategy (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Bot to bot, CFO to CFO

In managing UiPath’s rampant growth, the company finds itself building its own ecosystem of bots. And for Myers, the act of drinking one’s own champagne is a way to learn from UiPath’s own use cases, helping Myers better relate to customers, especially other CFOs.

“I’d say we’re really hitting the gas pedal right now in terms of building out our own competency and, to your point, eating the dog food and drinking the champagne, starting to push the envelope on how we actually use automation and AI to scale our own business,” said Myers, admitting she moved her entire family to UiPath’s home office in Bucharest, Romania, for the summer to focus her time on scaling out the infrastructure.

Even more interesting for Myers is the double role of advocate that CFOs often play at software-led companies.

“In RPA, almost 40% of the first use cases are in finance. So you’re out there supporting the business case with other CFOs who want to understand how does efficiency really work, why they should buy from us, and what’s the business proposition?” Myers stated.

The overlapping job descriptions also means CFOs today must be more strategic than those in the past, factoring in current sales, projected sales, and the product pipeline in a rapidly changing world. For Myers, UiPath’s expansion into more cloud-based offerings and process mining means a bigger TAM, which currently stands at just over $2 billion for the RPA market, according to her cited research. However, this assessment may be too narrow, especially for all that Myers and UiPath have in store.

“I’ve been looking at it a lot more broadly because I do believe [traditional RPA] is defined today quite narrowly. That started very much in the back office. As we’ve spread automation and created that platform mentality, the TAM becomes additive. You’ve got now the process mining TAM, which I think we can clearly start to play in that space. Then also the [business process management], and now, obviously, AI,” Myers said.

Based on her own “back of the envelope” calculations, Myers anticipates RPA’s TAM to exceed the $10-billion mark.

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

Photo: SiliconANGLE