In 2022, after the departure of foreign developers of RPA systems from Russia, the market transformed greatly and was able to become more competitive and diversified. If until that moment the RPA segment was the leader in terms of growth and development, then after the disappearance of foreign solutions, it began to undergo a period of turbulence - Russian companies took time to adapt and switch to domestic RPA platforms. Local players responded quickly and began to actively invest in improving their products, which made it possible to reduce the stage of uncertainty and mitigate some of the risks to the business.

The migration primarily affected transport companies, banks, large retailers and telecom operators. And since Russian systems turned out to be cheaper than foreign counterparts, and their price did not depend on the exchange rate, companies were able to save money even in the event of a large-scale transition and thereby make it less painful.

In our market and until 2022, there were competitive Russian software manufacturers capable of replacing foreign solutions. It's just that before there was no motivation to work with them - after all, proven import systems were available. Now the business has more than enough motivation, so the market is growing, - comments Anton Sergeyev, head of RPA at iiii Tech.

Russian vendors had to do a lot of work to improve products, develop their functionality and stability of work. At the same time, the positions of Russian platforms have also changed. This was facilitated, among other things, by the development of methodologies and special tools for migration from foreign platforms. The companies have strengthened their personnel, attracting experts from the departed decisions.

The departure of foreign vendors has become a growth point for domestic RPA systems, and thanks to the redistribution and seizure of the market, the developers managed to attract the attention of customers and rapidly develop in this direction, says Daniil Morozenko, head of RPA at First Bit.

Today we can say that the market has become completely Russian, since there are practically no foreign players left on it. If we assess the main events and dynamics of 2022, then import substitution was definitely the main trend. Now it is already declining, since the number of installations of foreign RPA platforms is not large, "said Pavel Borchenko, CEO of ROBIN.

If earlier we noted a rather serious predominance of one Western player - UiPath, now we are seeing a distribution of customers across different vendors. Those who have already used RPA solutions have focused over the past year on the transition from a Western counterpart to domestic systems. This provided two effects. On the one hand, there is a slight slowdown in development, because it is necessary to rebuild what has already been built. On the other hand, Russian solutions make it possible to provide a more interesting economic effect. Vendors were able to increase the coverage of possible processes for robotization within each specific client. So, to make the use of technology more profitable, "says Artyom Vinogradov, commercial director of Primo RPA.

According to the expert, today there are at least five players on the market who together move the process. They speak at conferences, write articles, communicate with each other and even with those who are not engaged in robotization at all. As a result, the percentage of people involved in the market is growing. Companies appear that previously, for various reasons, did not consider robotization for themselves, but are now interested. Perhaps precisely because they began to talk about it more.

At the same time, stricter requirements began to be put forward for Russian developments. It is important for customers to distinguish between access rights, control executable code and data, and protect robot code from unauthorized changes. After all, software robots not only help employees with their work, but also at the same time have access to all applications and data on work computers. Combined with the overall trend of moving to the clouds, this potential vulnerability has led many companies to think about security, and vendors to make changes to solutions and take these requirements into account.

Automatic technology for transferring business from foreign systems is expected from Russian RPA platforms. Many vendors are developing such a converter right now. Press one button, slightly adjust and switch to a new platform - this is certainly a success for the system that can implement it. Therefore, whoever quickly transfers robotic processes to Russian platforms will win, "said Tatyana Moshkina, managing partner of IAS Digital.

The iFellow company also notes that the departure of foreign vendors from the country did not become a critical problem, although it affected fintech and organizations introducing digital innovations among the first. The market quickly adapted and even continued to grow. The companies formed teams for import substitution projects and transferred software robots from foreign platforms to Russian ones. Otkritie Bank, Alfa-Bank, X5 Group and others announced replacement projects. Rostelecom, for example, switched from UiPath to Sherpa RPA, and the Hoff furniture network migrated to the PIX platform.

In our opinion, import substitution of RPA platforms will last until the end of 2023, and by that time Russian solutions will prevail on the market. Overall, the market will stabilize in two to three years. Within five years, you can expect the emergence of three or four leaders who will push the remaining players into the second line. The winners will be vendors who will offer customers the highest quality solution architecture, rapid expansion of functionality and increased reliability of RPA platforms, says Andrey Kuzminov, head of software development practice at iFellow.

Experts agree that before leaving Russia, such vendors as UiPath, Blue Prism, Kofax and others occupied about 80-90% of the Russian market. Russian platforms, as a rule, used small enterprises. Today, the share of foreign vendors is no more than 15% and continues to systematically decline. So far, only those companies that sold long-term subscriptions to Russian customers remain.

Until the beginning of last year, Russian RPA platforms were mainly implemented in companies closely related to government agencies, and the number of implementations was a very small percentage of the total. Now the situation is unfolding at 180 degrees, the share of foreign RPA products in the Russian market is decreasing, the possibility of using licenses purchased for several years in advance remains, but they will soon end. Some foreign vendors offered unlimited licenses, however, in this case, further technical support of the product is impossible, which also leads to the need to replace the platform, - comments Alexander Sukharev, Head of RPA at Axenix.

Companies that have bought licenses of foreign vendors for a long time or even indefinitely continue to use them. But they also gravitate towards the transition to domestic solutions, sometimes using them in parallel with the still working systems of Western vendors. This is natural: foreign technologies were left without full support, without updates, they are becoming less and less convenient to use, "agrees Artyom Vinogradov, commercial director of Primo RPA.

According to experts, it will be possible to estimate the exact share of foreign systems in the RPA market only after the end of these contracts.

The development of the market in 2022 stimulated rapid import substitution. According to IDC, the RPA market grew by 47.5% and reached 8.7 billion rubles. For 2023, analysts predicted a mark of 12.9 billion rubles.

But the opinions of the TAdviser survey participants in assessing the current volumes and their further growth diverged - from a cautious 6-7 billion rubles to an optimistic 16 billion rubles.

According to Mikhail Minyailov, head of business-oriented solutions at CTI, this difference is due to the fact that Russian vendors have been engaged in desperate dumping for many years, and Enterprise customers show general restraint and unwillingness to sharply change the main robotization platform.

If you look in monetary terms, then many domestic vendors in 2022 have grown significantly solely due to the redistribution of budgets intended for the platforms of world leaders. Moreover, if we take the volume of the market as a whole, I do not think that it has grown much, since purchases of domestic solutions took place at a large discount from the initially planned budgets, and not many new projects were initiated. Often, customers chose several platforms at the same time in order to close the planned needs for robotization, "said Pavel Borchenko, CEO of ROBIN.

In 2022, the costs of the top 150 Russian companies for robotizing business processes, according to our estimate, amounted to about 5 billion rubles, which is 15% more than a year earlier. The budget for RPA was distributed under three items: the purchase of licenses from vendors (1 billion rubles), integration costs (1 billion rubles), costs for internal automation (3 billion rubles). Market dynamics are about 15% per year - and 2023 will not be an exception, - comments Andrey Kuzminov, head of software development practice at iFellow.

According to Lydia Guryanova, director of production at Lexema, the RPA market in Russia is still in its infancy. But still, thanks to the efforts of Russian vendors, the volume should grow by 20-30% this year. Such figures can be provided, among other things, by companies with state participation.

Artyom Vinogradov, commercial director of Primo RPA, is optimistic about 50 to 100% growth.

If at the end of 2022, when there was a massive transition from foreign solutions to Russian ones, it is difficult to assess the dynamics, now there is already a feeling that the strategy - ours and competitors - to involve more companies in the use of robotization will lead to a significant increase in volume, the expert notes.

The company "First Bit" believes that growth can reach 500% at all, since a number of companies with long-term licenses of Western vendors will begin to switch to domestic RPA platforms of the second and third echelon this year. And those who have already migrated to them and understood how to work with them will begin to scale solutions.

Experts expect that the number of users of RPA products in the near future will dynamically increase not only due to migration from foreign software, but also due to the development of robotization of processes within the framework of business needs.

For 2023, we predict more projects dictated by conscious choice, not just the need for migration. The growth of the market as a whole will be due to the development of internal centers of expertise and the popularization of technology within the corporate environment. We see this well on the example of those clients with whom we have been working closely in recent years, adapt to their requests, and in addition to the product, we develop training courses, communities, open representative offices in the regions, improve partner services in order to have enough capacity and resources to meet such growth, "says Pavel Borchenko, CEO of ROBIN.

The RPA market in Russia has great potential, and it is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. According to some forecasts, the annual growth rate will be more than 30%. This is because more companies are becoming aware of the benefits of automating processes with RPA, such as increasing efficiency and productivity, reducing costs, and improving work quality. Therefore, we estimate the Russian RPA market in 2023 at about 20 billion rubles, - predicts Yegor Govorkov, head of the IT portfolio of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia.

In 2023, 6 companies shared data on revenue from the implementation of RPA projects with TAdviser, including 1 vendor and 5 integrators of such solutions. The leader among these companies was the ROBIN platform developer. ROBIN RPA The data of other market participants can be found in the table below.

The dynamic development of Russian RPA systems, according to experts, is now hindered by several key factors.

1. Lack of qualified specialists capable of implementing projects for the implementation of RPA systems. Their training takes time, which in turn restrains the pace of robotization.

2. The business is unaware of the RPA's capabilities. Many IT directors still perceive robots as "blue tape," and owners and top managers have not heard about robots at all.

The industry needs popularization, global events, hackathons, training based on popular sites. The fact that it is robots, and not classical automation, that are the most economically feasible and at the same time a constant solution to the business problems of customers, should learn many more representatives of the business function, "said Konstantin Artemyev, CEO of Sherpa RPA.

3. Conservativeness in relation to new technologies. Companies that have not implemented foreign solutions do not seek to implement domestic systems either.

4. Cost of implementation. Many companies fear high costs and are unsure about the effectiveness of such investments.

Not everyone is ready to change the platform 1-2 years after the completion of the introduction of a foreign product. This is what forces Russian vendors to develop converters to facilitate scenario migration, "explains Mikhail Minyailov, head of business-oriented solutions at CTI.

It is important, together with the customer, to find cases that make robotization cost-effective, pay off the process of implementing and purchasing licenses. Such assistance to customers is provided by very few vendors and integrators, and this, in turn, becomes an additional deterrent. Companies that want to develop robotization should move away from clean implementation projects and focus more on the consulting component of robotization, says Andrey Salomatin, vice president and technical director of Renaissance Bank.

5. Prejudice on the RPA account. It is expressed by companies faced with early versions of platforms that had roughness and imperfections.

The first versions could really alienate users, but over the years of development, the technology has changed qualitatively and has become much stronger. At the same time, the development and integration teams have become stronger, which has significantly increased the economic effect of the implementation of RPA, - said Daniil Morozenko, head of RPA at First Bit.

6. Limited RPA capabilities in automating complex processes. In such cases, it is necessary to use more complex technologies - machine learning and artificial intelligence.

According to Nikolai Kameko, RPA GlowByte Development Manager, the domestic RPA market also does not quite have enough "maturity" - not all vendors were ready for a sharp increase in demand for Russian solutions.

Many have gone to the stage of "copying" the approaches of foreign systems, which, on the one hand, has become a plus - customers have the opportunity to use a similar product, which means they have less difficulties interacting with the platform. On the other hand, imitation slows down the development of those unique innovations that our developers are capable of, the expert says.

The competitive market requires manufacturers to properly allocate resources both in the development and promotion of the product. Moreover, each incorrectly chosen vector threatens to lose a significant market share.

Another limitation of RPA is the need for structured data to operate the bots. If the data is unstructured, it may require additional effort and tools to automate it. In addition, the need to implement RPA in a company can cause certain difficulties in organizing processes, which can also become a barrier, - comments Yegor Govorkov, Head of the IT Portfolio of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia.

Restraining the growth of the market can also be possible problems with data security when using RPA systems. It should also be borne in mind that there are alternative technologies for automating business processes that can compete with robots, "said Lidia Guryanova, Production Director of Lexema.

Slows the development and use of RPA as temporary solutions to complete process automation. Over time, such robots are turned off, licenses are not renewed, and this market share is lost. In addition, companies that use robots in this way alone will not be ready to evaluate the full potential of RPA solutions in the future.

Today, robotization is still the lot of large corporations. In order to "reach" the medium-sized business, vendors and integrators must come up with new approaches, reduce the threshold for entering the technology. It is possible to offer some typical solutions.

We all still have a way to go to maturity. And those companies that provide technology production, and those that are engaged in implementation, right now there is much to grow in terms of stability, availability, quality and supply in the market. When technologically vendors become more stable, there will be fewer restraining factors - it will be possible to take the technology and use it without looking at the fact that it still does not know how to do anything, - said Artyom Vinogradov, commercial director of Primo RPA.

According to Alexander Zhukov, Development Director of the software development company Format Code, the market is also constrained by the organizational complexity of projects. In order for robotization to bring effect, it is necessary to identify and automate the processes that the performers are engaged in. It also requires constructive interaction between leaders from different parts of the business and a good understanding of what RPA can give organizations that are not "permeated" by IT.

Based on the opinion of the survey participants, we highlighted the following trends in the technological development of RPA.

Introduction of machine learning, artificial intelligence and OCR, including for business process research. For example, the integration of AI into an RPA system can help retailers process customer reviews and respond to them automatically without using scripts and templates. This work is aimed at increasing brand loyalty and increasing profits. AI is constantly learning, so the effectiveness of its introduction into processes can be increased continuously.

So, in Primo RPA and PIX Robotics, platforms already contain ML elements. In addition, PIX is working to create its own ecosystem of not only robots, but also a technology stack that includes analytics tools (BI), ETL, process control (PM) and other solutions used in conjunction with robots. This allows the business to use comprehensive solutions and avoid additional integrations that require temporary and monetary resources.

Now there is a tendency to make life easier for developers, ideally - a transition to low code and even no-code platforms that would simply allow you to "throw" ideas and take the finished result. But so far this does not work like this and slows down the possibilities for self-development by business users. Machine learning and artificial intelligence tools that we actively study and implement both we and our competitors will make a difference, "comments Ilya Kochetov, Director of Technological Development at Primo RPA.

Integration with other technologies (BPM, CRM and ERP), reusing low/no code development platforms for a single digital automation space. This enables companies to create more efficient and automated business processes. For example, in banks, in the process of processing loan applications, the RPA can automatically check customer information, request additional documents from the borrower and enter data into the ABS.

We implemented a case in which the robot checked counterparties, collecting data from web services on bankruptcy status, lack of courts and financial situation. The implementation was as convenient as possible: an employee sent a letter with the TIN data of the organization to a certain email, and in response received a full statement-status for the counterparty. The advantage of the robot is the speed of searching for information and the convenience of receiving a report - in the form in which you originally planned, "says Tatyana Moshkina, managing partner of IAS Digital.

Development of cloud RPA systems. Enables you to use platforms without the need to install software on servers, quickly implement process robotization, and scale it as needed.

Improved safety and reliability. It includes the development of data protection, process monitoring and audit mechanisms, as well as access control system improvement. At the same time, adaptation and certification with domestic operating systems and applications is underway.

Creating a whole set of products and services around RPA: Process & Task mining, BI-based monitoring and audit services, business process reengineering, etc. This will improve the efficiency and accuracy of processes, as well as expand their scope.

Development of mobile RPA systems. They allow you to robotize the work of field specialists, for example, sales managers and couriers.

Development of RPA systems that can work with unstructured data. This will open up new possibilities for automating processes previously inaccessible to robots.

Development of the concept of hybrid working forces consisting of humans and robots. For example, integrating a robot with a chatbot/voice robot to create personal employee assistants, both for internal corporate scenarios and in client service. This will reduce the time spent on training bots and improve interaction with them.

Domestic RPA platforms are likely to continue to develop in different directions, covering the custom needs of customers. This includes the aforementioned AI, the application options of which are huge. Also, the focus may shift to data analysis, process monitoring, and increased security.

There are a lot of developers in Russia, and now it is obvious that the development of Russian RPA platforms is accelerating due to a wave of investments and growing demand in the Russian market. Domestic vendors have an understandable and promising roadmap for platform development and are growing significantly both in terms of implementation volumes and in terms of the functionality of their solutions.

If we look at any domestic platform in early 2022 and now - these will be two completely different solutions. Multiple growth is obvious. All this happened due to import substitution, attracting new budgets and market needs, which appeared with the departure of foreign vendors. Russian developers had to not only replace and adapt, but also create what was not, and in an accelerated mode, - notes Daniil Morozenko, head of RPA at First Bit.

More than 10 Russian platforms are represented on the market today. The most notable of them are PIX, Primo RPA, Sherpa RPA, ROOMY bots, Lexema-RPA, Robin RPA. These and other solutions have great potential, since in the financial industry, for example, robots control hundreds of routine business processes. In other sectors of the economy, the penetration rate of technology is less, and these are the very growth points for the segment.

But, as in any industry, the issue of replacing foreign solutions with domestic ones has its difficulties.

Technically, it is not difficult to replace one solution with another, and many manufacturers are already ready for this. There are appropriate retraining programs, converters, etc. But, if you dig deeper, features are manifested. For example, most domestic vendors use proprietary components or frameworks in their solutions. And Microsoft it is clear that in this case it is impossible to talk about real import independence and the absence of risks associated with geopolitical decisions, - said Pavel Borchenko, CEO of ROBIN.

The question may arise - how then do organizations declare that they have switched to such a system if it is not safe? The fact is that in most cases when the organization has already used a foreign platform, when replacing it, the full composition of the components and compliance with security standards are not always analyzed. Only a formal presence in the register of Russian software is enough. This usually causes further difficulties and can lead to another costly migration to another platform.

In addition, customers, during the transfer of robotization systems, begin to think: do they need all robots? Is the documentation relevant for everyone? Does it make sense to equip everything differently? Old tasks disappear, new ones appear, requirements change. And as a result, the migration process often turns into an implementation process.

There are always difficulties, but, as a rule, they lie at the level of the difference in the execution of similar functions. In some places, you have to fundamentally change the schemes of software robots, which sometimes gives even better results than Western platforms gave, "says Valentin Drazdov, product manager at PIX RPA, PIX Robotics.

The Lexema company calls the key difficulties the lack of ready-made markets for the sale of RPA systems in Russia, the lack of experience and qualifications among domestic specialists, as well as the lack of financial resources from Russian companies to develop and implement their own RPA solutions.

Another difficulty in replacing foreign RPA solutions can be differences in the standards of interaction, as well as the lack of necessary integrations with other systems that the company already uses. It is also not always possible to ensure compatibility with different versions of operating systems.

But despite all of the above, experts believe that the Russian RPA market only benefits from import substitution. Customers can purchase a localized solution at a significantly lower cost, which is generally not inferior, but in particular and surpasses Western systems. Vendors receive both financial resources and expertise from customers, integrators and new employees, which allows them to actively develop the ecosystem of their products and services.

Domestic manufacturers of RPA platforms are now not only growing rapidly, but also trying to enter foreign markets. So they have every chance to replace completely foreign vendors, as well as make healthy competition in the LATAM and APAC markets.

The main thing is to be ready for scaling and provide high-quality support during implementation, "says Artem Zadoya, Director of the Coordination, Standardization and Quality Department of DKSiK SberService.

According to Yegor Govorkov, head of the IT portfolio of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Russia, over time, with the support of the state and the development of the IT industry in Russia, we can expect an increase in the number of domestic RPA developers and the emergence of new promising solutions.

Despite the fact that Russian developers have considerable potential in the field of RPA, they are still lagging behind world leaders in this area. Foreign solutions have been many times more technological, and Russian counterparts need time to catch up with them from this point of view. Some companies note that if it were not for the departure of foreign vendors, they would hardly have begun to develop their technologies and software so actively.

Domestic RPA solutions are still inferior to world leaders in the field of financial resources for the development and implementation of systems, as well as ready-made markets for the sale of such systems in Russia. Also, Russian developers are lagging behind in the use of the latest technologies and approaches, such as pattern recognition, neural networks and machine learning. However, they really have the potential to develop and strengthen their positions in this area, - comments Lidia Guryanova, Production Director of Lexema.

The technological superiority of world leaders has been formed for many years and despite the assurances of many domestic manufacturers that "we have done the same or better" is not always true. The difference in little things is in mistakes, convenience, culture of use and it has a price. But these are tasks to be solved, with sufficient time, resources and patience of customers. The main thing is the presence of a strategic vision and constant innovation, which, ultimately, determine the company's position in the market. Otherwise, there is a great risk that a number of domestic vendors will remain simply cheaper copies of foreign products, which at one point may become unnecessary if a way of purchasing more mature foreign software appears again, "says Pavel Borchenko, CEO of ROBIN.

Domestic RPA solutions have historically been inferior to world leaders in terms of scalability and flexibility, but have surpassed them in the field of integration. Today they still lack speed, stability, quality of study. They are less comfortable and need more manual work. Some foreign RPA systems have a more diverse set of integrations with boxed products of world vendors, for example SalesForce, SAP, IBM.

World leaders also offered user-friendly interfaces, well-developed training materials and community support. Russian solutions have not yet reached the same level of friendliness to the developer and users - they are more difficult to master. Another growth zone for them is to increase the stability of operation under high load.

We are now spending a tremendous amount of effort to polish domestic RPA systems to the level of competitors. We have no task to catch up with anyone. But I already want to offer Russian companies solutions of the level to which they are accustomed, and continue to develop, - notes Ilya Kochetov, Director of Technological Development at Primo RPA.

Western platforms give serious gains to their users through an ecosystem approach, offering interconnected tools to all participants in robotization. But the leaders of the Russian market have already realized the need for ecosystems, their benefits and convenience for customers. In some cases, the tools they offer go to higher levels than were offered by foreign competitors.

We are actively adding tools such as Action Center, Task Mining, Process Mining to our platform. Other Russian platforms are likely to follow the same path. Some hyperautomatization functions, such as working with VDI, intelligent understanding and document recognition, are implemented even better than world leaders, "emphasizes Konstantin Artemyev, CEO of Sherpa RPA.

According to Nikolai Kameko, RPA GlowByte Development Manager, another challenge for Russian vendors is the stable work of the orchestrator. It is possible to check how this part of the platform copes with a high load only with a large number of robots, which is difficult at the stage of testing the platform as part of pilot projects. For this reason, it is necessary to regulate the mechanisms of uninterrupted operation in the context of full-fledged product implementation on large installations. But in general, all domestic decisions pass this test successfully: in some cases faster, in others a little slower.

Also, domestic RPA solutions are still inferior to world leaders in proven experience of successful application in various fields, and the degree of specialization in terms of "understanding" data structures and typical tasks. However, this can be successfully compensated by consulting and the correct construction of the implementation project.

First of all, Russian RPA platforms are distinguished by a lower cost compared to Western counterparts. This is also due to the fact that the purchase of a solution from the register of domestic software is not subject to VAT, and if you introduce a turnkey system, you do not need to pay for a license.

Domestic vendors can provide more flexible licensing conditions and simpler procurement procedures, which simplifies the implementation of products. The average cost of a license for one robot today is about 60 thousand rubles a month. For this money, the robot will work 24 hours and work out the 5-6 of processes. And the cost of it will pay off quickly enough.

Russian suppliers of RPA systems understand the specifics of the Russian market well, quickly respond to changes in legislation and customer requirements, rely on new unique functionality, relying on the requests of customers from different areas. In addition, they are provided with increased support from the state.

In the West, they love solutions with a conditional "one button," but we, on the contrary, have always had a request for deeply technical things, more complex systems that allow us to customize everything for ourselves. In RPA, this, of course, was also reflected, - said Ilya Kochetov, director of technological development at Primo RPA.

Another obvious advantage is operational technical support and impact on product development. Customers of Western vendors used to often complain that any request is slightly more complicated than the competencies of the "first line" could expect an answer for weeks, and there was no answer to complex technical questions at all. Russian offices of foreign developers did not always have sufficient competence, sent questions to Western offices, and for them Russian clients were not particularly priority. One could only dream of a foreign vendor implementing some new function on demand.

Now companies that have switched to Russian platforms recognize how much faster support is responsible for Western vendors. For example, we have an average response time to a simple request of 10-15 minutes during working hours, to a difficult one - several hours. Some requests of our clients for the implementation of new functionality are executed on the same working day, and these are not isolated cases, there are dozens of them. Customers got a real opportunity to influence the roadmap of domestic platforms, - comments Konstantin Artemyev, CEO of Sherpa RPA.

It is almost impossible to imagine such communication with foreign suppliers. All reporting on bugs and other issues often goes unanswered. Domestic platforms do not have this, they grow and develop, collect feedback, you can discuss your "pains" with them and find a solution, "agrees Daniil Morozenko, head of RPA at First Bit.

In addition, Russian solutions make it possible to integrate with 1C, Yandex, Telegram and other products, which foreign platforms did not have.

According to our observations, Primo RPA and PIX Robotics have released new releases at least every two weeks over the past six months. If such a speed of product development continues, then by the end of 2023 domestic market leaders will have functionality comparable to the departed platforms, "says Andrey Kuzminov, head of software development practice at iFellow.

As Ivan Chemiy, an analyst at Navicon, notes, new scenarios for using RPA have appeared. For example, in the first quarter of 2023, the demand for programs that help employees perform their usual operations in new domestic systems and thereby simplify the import substitution process increased.

Most domestic RPA platforms are quite flexible. They allow you to build user scenarios of different levels of complexity. Thanks to this, companies can attract workers to the automation process even without a technical background and stimulate digital changes "from the inside." Therefore, in my opinion, this segment of the market expects great prospects and growth at least twice in the next year or two, the expert is sure.

In addition, domestic RPA products meet the requirements of national security and data privacy, which is important for companies working with public and large private customers.

Also, Russian platforms managed to quickly build local technological partnerships in order to restore the necessary and familiar stack of technologies for solving robotization problems (for example, OCR).

According to the study participants, it is extremely important for Russian programmers to make better decisions than anyone did before them. Thanks to this approach, platforms not only retain, but also increase the high pace of adding new functionality.

The developers unanimously rely on artificial intelligence and machine learning, which will allow them to launch new functionality and close the needs of customers for such solutions. The vendors also plan to improve the friendliness and convenience of the user interface.

In Lexema, improving system scalability and flexibility, improving task speed, and reducing RPA deployment and configuration time are priorities.

In the near future, we plan to improve data processing algorithms, increase the number of available integrations with other systems and improve the user interface, "says Lidia Guryanova, Production Director of Lexema.

ROBIN developers focus on creating comprehensive solutions using artificial intelligence that allow you to robotize holistic processes in procurement, financial and legal departments, technical support and others. Ilya Kochetov, Director of Technological Development at Primo RPA, says that the product development is now in line with the general trend - the company is moving towards increasing the convenience of systems for the user and developer, working on integrating RPA with machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies.

Primo Orchestrator provides ease of control for robots, the ChatGPT analogue system allows you to analyze our documentation and generate hints in response to a user's request in free form. Using the Primo RPA code analyzer, it is easy to identify and correct errors in the development process, and using the Primo Autodoc system, the robot can create a technical description for itself, the expert says.

The company is also developing Idea Hub, an intranet portal that will provide a full and convenient organization of work with robots. Idea Hub creates their passports with a full technical description and calculates the effects of application - literally, in monetary terms.

Sherpa RPA also relies on artificial intelligence, generative models and "price-free" assistant robots. They will be able to perform popular tasks at the request of the user, independently deciding what steps need to be taken to achieve the goal. Another area of development for the company is unstructured data processing. Neural networks will help to extract important information without complex algorithms, rules and regular expressions.

These technologies are not for hype, we believe that they will really speed up and simplify the development of scenarios, as well as reduce the barrier of entry into robotization for non-programmers - civilian developers, and there will be no excuse left not to make robots to simplify office work. Each employee will have his own robot in the office, literally, - predicts Konstantin Artemyev, CEO of Sherpa RPA.

Russian developers of RPA systems are quite confident on their feet. The departure of foreign vendors pushed them to rapid development, giving them a chance not only to replace foreign solutions, but also to surpass them. And although, according to various estimates, broad import substitution seemed to be a difficult task at the beginning of last year, now domestic platforms are actively increasing functionality, approaching key players in the foreign market.

In Russian RPA systems, despite certain weaknesses, many advantages can be distinguished. Domestic vendors know how to adapt very quickly. In critical conditions, they managed to improve their solutions with incredible speed and help companies left without a foreign RPA platform return to stable operation.

By following global trends and relying on AI and ML technologies, Russian developers will be able to offer customers more services and functionality in the very near future to automate a significant part of business processes in various areas of business.

• Basic definitions
• Features of the development of the Russian RPA system market
• Applications and Challenges of Implementing Software Robots
• How software robots turn into a digital workforce
• New RPA manifesto
• Chatbots (Chat-bot) Virtual interlocutors
• Why is RPA becoming the technology of the year?
• Development differences on UiPath and Kofax RPA RPA platforms
• Overview of the BPM system in Russia