A Nascent Taxonomy of Machine Learning in Intelligent Robotic Process Automation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Laakmann, Lukas, Ciftci, Seyyid A., Janiesch, Christian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908547020750848
author Laakmann, Lukas
Ciftci, Seyyid A.
Janiesch, Christian
author_facet Laakmann, Lukas
Ciftci, Seyyid A.
Janiesch, Christian
contents Robotic process automation (RPA) is a lightweight approach to automating business processes using software robots that emulate user actions at the graphical user interface level. While RPA has gained popularity for its cost-effective and timely automation of rule-based, well-structured tasks, its symbolic nature has inherent limitations when approaching more complex tasks currently performed by human agents. Machine learning concepts enabling intelligent RPA provide an opportunity to broaden the range of automatable tasks. In this paper, we conduct a literature review to explore the connections between RPA and machine learning and organize the joint concept intelligent RPA into a taxonomy. Our taxonomy comprises the two meta-characteristics RPA-ML integration and RPA-ML interaction. Together, they comprise eight dimensions: architecture and ecosystem, capabilities, data basis, intelligence level, and technical depth of integration as well as deployment environment, lifecycle phase, and user-robot relation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_15730
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Nascent Taxonomy of Machine Learning in Intelligent Robotic Process Automation
Laakmann, Lukas
Ciftci, Seyyid A.
Janiesch, Christian
Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a lightweight approach to automating business processes using software robots that emulate user actions at the graphical user interface level. While RPA has gained popularity for its cost-effective and timely automation of rule-based, well-structured tasks, its symbolic nature has inherent limitations when approaching more complex tasks currently performed by human agents. Machine learning concepts enabling intelligent RPA provide an opportunity to broaden the range of automatable tasks. In this paper, we conduct a literature review to explore the connections between RPA and machine learning and organize the joint concept intelligent RPA into a taxonomy. Our taxonomy comprises the two meta-characteristics RPA-ML integration and RPA-ML interaction. Together, they comprise eight dimensions: architecture and ecosystem, capabilities, data basis, intelligence level, and technical depth of integration as well as deployment environment, lifecycle phase, and user-robot relation.
title A Nascent Taxonomy of Machine Learning in Intelligent Robotic Process Automation
topic Artificial Intelligence
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.15730