Attended Automation refers to RPA and automation solutions that run on a user's workstation and are triggered by or work alongside human users—providing real-time assistance, automating repetitive sub-tasks within a workflow, and augmenting human productivity without fully replacing the human in the process.
Context for Technology Leaders
For CIOs, attended automation provides a practical entry point for automation that augments existing workers rather than replacing them, reducing change management challenges while delivering immediate productivity benefits.
Key Principles
- 1User-Triggered: Attended bots are initiated by users when needed—clicking a button to auto-fill forms, extract data, or perform calculations during their normal workflow.
- 2Desktop Coexistence: Attended bots run on the user's machine alongside other applications, interacting with the same systems the user accesses.
- 3Real-Time Assistance: Attended automation provides immediate support during live interactions—such as pulling customer information during a call or validating data during entry.
- 4Lower Risk Entry: Attended automation carries lower risk than fully automated processes because a human remains in the loop to handle exceptions and verify results.
Strategic Implications for CIOs
CIOs should deploy attended automation for roles involving repetitive tasks within complex workflows—call centers, data processing, and administrative functions—where full automation is not feasible but significant productivity gains are available.
Common Misconception
A common misconception is that attended automation is less valuable than unattended automation. While unattended automation delivers higher per-process savings, attended automation often delivers greater total value by improving productivity across large workforces performing complex tasks that cannot be fully automated.