Prompted by ongoing complexities around application modernization architectures, enterprise operations teams, business users and developers are discovering a new breed of highly automated platforms which drive iteration and innovation among microservices teams in support of a robust delivery pipeline, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Intelligent process automation (IPA) is the natural evolution of business process automation when coupled with artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, low-code and RPA solutions and intelligent business process optimization. It is used by operations teams, business users and developers to significantly reduce repetitive tasks associated with the deployment of modern apps in a multi-cloud environment.

Charlotte Dunlap, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “This new unified, AI-infused automation technology is the result of enterprise operations teams citing a lack of automation as the key barrier to cloud-native app development and modern application deployments. The ability to automate repetitive operational processes is a crucial objective among enterprises in order not only to speed the time to service, but also to help reduce manual errors that plague DevOps initiatives and contribute to processes’ inefficiencies.”

In 2020, the industry has evolved beyond mere automation of manual processes, progressing into advanced technology, coupled with new automation solutions with machine intelligence based on analytics and business intent to provide visibility into the state and usage of application and infrastructure resources to help companies deliver greater customer experiences. These advancements aid in network/cloud and application architecture planning and investments. Software automation enhancements are taking place in various forms throughout the ecosystem of infrastructure, software, and cloud providers.

Specifically, the market is playing out through new unified platforms formed through the consolidation of various technologies:

• Traditional business process management (BPM) providers are evolving solutions to include machine learning intrinsically as part of predictive decision models, allowing for auto-generated rules based on historic data (versus user-generated rules)
• Low-code platforms, now enhanced with AI, have allowed for a broader group of shareholders to participate in the automation process under a DevOps model and microservices-based application development
• A key component of intelligent process automation is RPA for its ability to significantly reduce the mundane and repetitive tasks required in various processes systems
• Optimization technology, traditionally a component of BPM solutions, helps solve logistics situations and problems

Various vendors span each of these technology market segments. Leaders in this evolving space include IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Microsoft, Pegasystems, Appian, Mendix/Siemens, Salesforce, Progress Software, Automation Anywhere, UiPath, and Blue Prism.