What Automation Anywhere’s refreshed AI bot is offering enterprises

Automation Anywhere, a robotic process automation (RPA) unicorn led by Indian-origin founders, has unveiled advances to its artificial intelligence solution including the ability to auto-detect and process low-resolution documents in 190 languages.

US-headquartered Automation Anywhere said in a statement that IQ Bot 6.5 can learn from humans and process complex emails and images. According to the company, around 80-90% of organisations still manually extract data from documents and emails.

IQ Bot can be accessed from a mobile device, where it can process images and send the results to the required target. Field workers, delivery workers, insurance adjusters and even home appraisers could find the app useful on the go, the company added.

Automation Anywhere further said that IQ Bot 6.5 can detect handwriting, and has localised interfaces in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish and simplified Chinese. The differences from the previous IQ bots are smarter document classification and better integration with chatbots.  

“We believe the full potential of enterprise automation can only be realised when RPA and AI work together,” said Mihir Shukla, chief executive officer of Automation Anywhere.

"The ability to implement a bot quickly and cost-effectively to automate data capture can dramatically impact a company’s bottom line," said Harvey Spencer, president of Harvey Spencer Associates (HSA), a technology analysis company.

Spencer also said that as organisations eliminate legacy document processing solutions and bots become smarter with AI, the market for automation could expand significantly. RPA companies, which use software robots to automate entire business operations, have been at the forefront of this change, he added.   

Automation Anywhere was founded as Tethys Solutions in 2003 by four Indian-origin entrepreneurs -- Ankur Kothari, Mihir Shukla, Neeti Mehta Shukla and Rushabh Parmani. Its Indian offices are located in Bengaluru, Baroda and Mumbai.

Last November, Automation Anywhere had raised $300 million from new investor Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund in a transaction that valued the firm at $2.6 billion,