Artificial intelligence may dominate the headlines, but without a strong automation foundation, enterprises are finding it difficult to translate experimentation into real value.

Companies are eager to accelerate AI adoption, yet the industry is riddled with challenges that prevent ideas from moving past the pilot phase. Success depends not just on deploying tools, but on building a resilient process layer, one that creates trust, governance and scalability. As UiPath Inc. executives emphasized during the opening keynote at this week’s Fusion event, orchestration is where “AI meets ROI,” and this begins with a foundation of automation that can carry the weight of enterprise ambitions, according to Dave Vellante (pictured, right), chief analyst at theCUBE Research.

TheCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante talks about how automation foundation is the key to making AI adoption successful.

“What UiPath did that I really liked is they said agentic last year was like this magic wand, and the reality is very difficult,” Vellante said. “They asked Daniel [Dines] why is it that people fail so much? The first one is they don’t have a strong automation foundation. The second one was … ambitions are not that high. There’s a timeframe when it breaks even. He was saying essentially [that] ambitions should be higher, that net present value … they’re not critical processes.”

Vellante spoke with fellow theCUBE host Rebecca Knight (left) at UiPath Fusion, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the opening keynote and how UiPath is positioning a strong automation foundation as the key to making AI adoption successful and delivering real ROI. (* Disclosure below.)

Building ROI through automation foundation

Enterprises often fall into the trap of starting small with proofs of concept, but UiPath believes that this approach leads to incremental gains that fail to move the needle. Instead, the company pushes for automation strategies tied directly to business-critical processes where ROI can be transformative rather than symbolic, Vellante explained.

“Some things matter to different companies. [Dines] was saying, essentially, ambitions should be higher,” he said. “That net present value, in other words, the amount of value that you threw off, is really the key, that small POCs, they’re not worth the time. They’re not critical processes. You’re not moving the needle. The problem with this approach is it’s not meaningful enough to overcome the normal sort of expectations.”

This distinction matters as organizations weigh the risks of AI adoption against the rewards. UiPath’s stance is that the true danger lies not in pursuing big ambitions, but in undershooting the potential impact. When automation is layered strategically, the benefits extend beyond cost savings to long-term value creation, according to Vellante.

“ROI is just a percentage benefit over cost,” he added. “If I have a dollar of benefit and I have 10 cents of cost, I have a very high ROI. But my net present value, the amount of money that it throws off, is not much. If I get 60% of a small hit on a small process, what good is it? But if I get 5% on a huge [net present value], that’s a big difference.”

Security and governance also play central roles in the automation journey. That fear of “rogue agents” remains high, Vellante emphasized. Automation brings a deterministic layer that can keep generative AI in check. By blending robotic process automation with AI’s probabilistic models, enterprises can both scale innovation and maintain stability.

“[Dines] talked about the deterministic nature of robots,” Vellante noted. “He also talked about how RPA is hard when things change a lot. RPA is good at these kinds of sequential processes that are hardened. I think he’s saying we’re going to blend the deterministic pieces of RPA with the probabilistic pieces of gen AI. We’re going to, through our orchestration, both govern and create value.”

Finally, the platform approach that UiPath has been building positions automation as more than a standalone solution. Through acquisitions and integrations with partners such as Nvidia Corp., OpenAI Inc., Google LLC and Snowflake Inc., UiPath is betting that automation foundation becomes the scaffolding on which AI strategies can be executed reliably, according to Vellante.

“The key is to connect all these pieces reliably,” he said, “That’s where I think these partnerships that they announced come in.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of UiPath Fusion:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for UiPath Fusion. Neither UiPath Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE