Robotic process automation came with the promise of unlocking new enterprise value and efficiency, and although it has delivered on that promise, there’s room for advancement in automation use cases within the enterprise and public sector.

UiPath Inc. weathered its fledgling start as a software development company and is now one of the world’s largest RPA names. Now, its mantra is to turn software into robots to take repeatable work out of human hands. And all eyes are on the company to back this up with innovative product additions and industry leadership.

Organizations worldwide are automating their processes as part of digital automation. The benefits include lower operational costs, expediency and increased accuracy. But with increasingly vast data sets needing to be ingested and processed — coupled with skill gaps in areas such as AI — what does the future look like for RPA companies and the larger industry?

Industry analysts Dave Vellante and David Nicholson, hosts of theCUBE, SilicionANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, hosted the “UiPath Forward” event. They spoke with UiPath executives and industry experts about RPA innovation and the company’s plans for the industry’s immediate and long-term future. (* Disclosure below.)

Here are three insights you might have missed during the event:

1.) The public sector automates to better serve citizens.

Public offices and agencies are still some of America’s most inefficient workplaces. Burdened with crippling bureaucracy and paperwork, citizens often have to endure frustrating experiences with these institutions. Several public agencies are working with UiPath to change this, including the State of Tennessee, County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health and State of California DMV.

The State of California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is a prime example of this automation revolution, changing its reputation by leaning on RPA technology.

“Digital is fully self-service: Bots can do all your processing; automation can do all the processing; AI can do all the processing,” said Ajay Gupta, chief digital transformation officer for the State of California DMV. “Then you have virtual channels where you have customers interacting with the technicians. But once a technician is done solving the problem, they click a button and the bot does the rest of the work.”

Alongside the benefits resulting from its automation initiative, there are also financial upsides for the DMV — to the tune of around $8.8M already, according to Gupta.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Ajay Gupta:

2.) Companies should invest in creating citizen developers for increased RPA adoption.

Automation has been such a key element of enterprise digital transformation of late that 80% of respondents in a recent Gartner study cited it as a foremost cost optimization tactic. But as a skills gap continues to plague the industry, it falls on organizations to create citizen developer initiatives to enable business users who understand the operational pain points to automate the processes that create the highest return on investment.

“A lot of people on the business side, they’re not afraid of technology, they’re not afraid of getting trained,” said Maureen Fleming, program vice president at International Data Corp. “We have to start learning to live with this idea that business users can learn how to develop. They are developing; they’re driving value.”

A prime example of business user skill development can be found at PwC International Ltd. and its ProEdge learning platform. The solution provides upskilling with immersive experiences that help propel digital transformation.

“The goal here is not to turn people into professional developers,” said Kevin Kroen, partner for intelligent automation and digital upscaling at PwC International Ltd. “The goal is to get them engaged and make them part of the company’s digital transformation.”

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Maureen Fleming and Kevin Kroen:

3.) Automation adds a new dimension to the traditional workplace.

The pandemic has arguably brought more lasting change to the global workplace than any other single event in history. It laid bare the need for digital transformation and, subsequently, catalyzed the hybrid, distributed workplaces that are now commonplace.

“Where you work, when you work, how we work, why you work, that’s changing,” said R ‘Ray’ Wang, founder, chairman and principal analyst at Constellation Research Inc. “But, more importantly, the business models are changing. The monetization models are changing. There are macro dynamics that are happening … and I think it’s going to reshape us.”

Further up the digital transformation ladder, companies must combine traditional RPA with “intelligent automation” in order to continuously accrue benefits, according to Pascal Bornet, best-selling author in AI and automation and chief technology evangelist at Aera Technology. The future of work combines RPA and AI for the advanced automation of end-to-end processes.

“A lot of those processes need more than execution. They need language, they need the capacity to view, to see, they need the capacity to understand and to create insights,” Bornet said.

Here’s theCUBE’s complete video interview with Ray Wang and Pascal Bornet, best-selling author in AI and automation and chief technology evangelist at Aera Technology:

To watch more of theCUBE’s coverage of UiPath Forward, here’s our complete event video playlist:

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

Image: SiliconANGLE