Robotic process automation leader UiPath Inc. announced today it’s partnering with the conversational artificial intelligence startup Amelia US LLC to create a fully integrated digital agent for workflow automation.

The partnership is all about delivering simpler experiences for employees, who often struggle with the technical side of creating automated workflows, UiPath said.

UiPath’s RPA platform can help companies to reduce costs and operational errors by automating many repetitive work-related tasks, such as data entry. Its platform is powered by AI models that learn how these tasks are performed by humans. Those models then create software robots that are able to replicate these workflows, so they no longer need to be done manually.

While there’s no doubting the power of automation, the employee experience still lags somewhat, since creating these automations still requires some level of technical expertise.

This is where the partnership with Amelia is aimed at changing the game. With the new digital agent, employees now have a way to make support requests via chat, messaging or voice. Amelia’s conversational digital agent will then process the request and natively integrate with UiPath’s software robots to resolve it through workflow automation. Once that task has been done, Amelia will then summarize the resolution for the employee via their preferred channel.

More complex requests that cannot easily be resolved will be escalated to support agents, and whatever solution is provided will then be “remembered” by Amelia’s AI assistant, so it can better support similar issues if they crop up again in future.

Dhruv Asher, UiPath’s senior vice president of alliances and business development, said the company is motivated by the belief that automation liberates the boundless potential of humans, so it’s critical to transform the employee experience and make it more accessible. “In Amelia, we found a partner that is both home to a market-leading conversational AI solution and perfectly aligned with our mission and vision for automation,” he said.

UiPath said customers that deploy UiPath with Amelia will empower their employees and boost satisfaction with immediate, round-the-clock resolutions for a wide range of information technology and administrative tasks, with examples that include application troubleshooting, password resets, vacation balance checks, payroll changes, VPN access and so on.

The main benefits include increased employee productivity and a reduction in service desk waiting times, as well as an improvement in employer net promoter scores, UiPath said.

“The partnership between UiPath and Amelia is a smart move because it helps customers, who get a leading AI solution in conjunction with their UiPath solution,” said Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. “It is a good for UiPath too, as the vendor can focus on its core product and does not have to redirect R&D resources to AI capabilities. Finally, it’s a win for Amelia because it finds more usage of its AI technology.”

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