Popular RPA launches free version for devs, SMBs, and students

Automation Anywhere has eliminated the barriers to RPA adoption (Robotic Process Automation) for small businesses, developers and students, by providing unfettered access to the only true digital workforce platform. Beginning now, users of the Community Edition will have access to the full suite of Automation Anywhere products, including RPA, IQ Bot (AI), Bot Insight (embedded analytics) and Bot Store, the industry's first online marketplace for preconfigured downloadable RPA bots. Without this robust platform, businesses would need to cobble together pieces of disparate technologies to even approach the power of Automation Anywhere's technology and ecosystem.

What is Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?

You can think of RPI (Robotic Process Automation) as a "software robot, or a form of business where companies study users interacting with software and build in processes that mimic the user's actions directly into the GUI, they can act intelligently based on the user actions later. Wiki refers to it as, "business process automation technology based on the notion of software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers."

Enterprises are increasingly augmenting their human workforce with a digital workforce, driven by the reality of a rapidly-aging global workforce. The global RPA market is emerging as a $100 billion opportunity according to Arvind Ramnani, equity research analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets,1 and Gartner predicts that by 2020, 40 percent of large enterprises will have deployed RPA software, up from less than 10 percent today. This accelerated growth is more fluid when the technology is put into the hands of a wider array of users who will continue to build their skills in developing, deploying and scaling RPA.

"We envision a future where digital workers are working side by side with every employee in businesses of all sizes," said Mihir Shukla, chief executive officer, Automation Anywhere. "We believe Automation Anywhere's Digital Workforce platform is the most tangible example of how RPA and AI can transform and enrich the lives of millions of people. To accelerate this journey, we are providing free access to our industry-leading RPA platform with built-in AI, smart analytics and the industry's first Bot Store. This will especially help small businesses turbocharge their automation initiatives while empowering a whole new generation of RPA developers."

For developers, Community Edition provides the most advanced bot development environment to create and bring new automation solutions to market faster. Technology vendors can use the platform to build bots with skills directly related to their service offerings and upload them to Automation Anywhere's Bot Store.

"As a developer and deployer, having access to Community Edition will allow us to bring our automation expertise to more people and do it with speed," said Mark Trepanier, chief operating officer of transform AI. "We are "creative heroes" for our clients, and this gives us the opportunity to leverage Automation Anywhere's platform to build game-changing RPA technology solutions that could alter the course of business for us, and most importantly for our clients."