Automation Anywhere buys FortressIQ

Automation Anywhere is to buy cloud pioneer FortressIQ, a process discovery and mining company based in San Francisco, for an undisclosed fee.

Combining FortressIQ with Automation Anywhere, which specialises in robotic process automation (RPA), aims to usher in "a new era of intelligent automation" by enabling organisations to accelerate automation initiatives and transform in a digital-first world.

"The Fortress IQ team are the pioneers of process intelligence, making this a perfect match," said Mihir Shukla, CEO and Co-Founder, Automation Anywhere. "Together, Automation Anywhere and FortressIQ will reshape the future of automation, changing the way our customers automate, adapt, and accelerate as they pursue digital transformation initiatives."

"Automation Anywhere is a global leader of the RPA revolution, and nearly two decades later, is reimagining automation to be cloud-native, intelligent, and designed for every person in every company," said Pankaj Chowdhry, CEO and Founder, FortressIQ. "We share a vision to deliver and automate at scale, as well as share common values to help customers succeed on a trusted platform. This will change the industry, and I'm excited about what we can automate next."

Building the Automated Company Together

Demand for RPA has skyrocketed as the pandemic endures and companies look for new ways to streamline business processes. Process intelligence, as part of RPA, is essential, helping companies identify, map, and analyse the multi-dimensional processes that extend across hundreds of applications and hundreds of thousands of employees.

With the acquisition of FortressIQ, Automation Anywhere will advance its AI-powered, cloud-native Automation 360 platform with process discovery, intelligence, and optimisation that can scale to any system or application across any vertical. The new capabilities offer built-in intelligence that provides fast, accurate visibility on which processes can and should be automated.

"Today, organisations are focusing on improving cycle times and overall operating performance to ensure that inefficiency does not get in the way of successful transformation," said Maureen Fleming, Program Vice President, IDC Intelligent Process Automation Research. "Tools aimed at providing insights about where a process and its individual tasks are holding back overall operating performance are becoming the de facto starting point for automation and improvement projects. Integrating process insights with automation planning and development speeds up time to value while improving the accuracy and completeness of the resulting automation."

Automating low-value, manual tasks can free up time and resources that can then be used by organisations to adapt to changing business conditions. Automation Anywhere customers have collectively implemented nearly 3 million automations, with leading companies deploying tens of thousands of bots throughout their organizations, primarily in the cloud.