Article

Four common intelligent automation myths you need to stop believing

May 6, 2025 · Authored by Kevin Brandt, David Hickey

Intelligent automation (IA) enables organizations across industries to automate routine, repetitive tasks that once consumed countless human work hours. Despite its proven track record of success, misconceptions around intelligent automation continue to circulate. Digital workers powered by IA create barriers to adoption and prevent businesses from fully utilizing their potential benefits and range from concerns about workforce displacement to questions about implementation complexity and scalability.

Intelligent automation technology is evolving and becoming more sophisticated, accessible and integrated with complementary technologies like robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). By debunking the common misconceptions, organizations can make more informed decisions about how to incorporate intelligent automation into their digital transformation strategies.

Myth: Intelligent automation is only for large enterprises

Fact: There is a common misconception that IA is only viable for large corporations with big budgets. The fact is automation can benefit organizations of all sizes. Many IA vendors offer scalable pricing models and cloud-based options have made the technology more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. The return on investment (ROI) of IA is often most dramatic in large organizations which traditionally have higher transaction volumes but both small and medium sized organization can usually find use cases with significant enough ROI to warrant deploying a digital workforce to take on repetitive tasks. Even automating a single process like invoice processing, customer onboarding or data validation, can deliver time and cost savings for smaller enterprises. Small and mid-sized businesses often have less complex legacy systems and more agile decision-making processes, which actually accelerate RPA adoption.

Myth: RPA will replace human workers

Fact: One of the most persistent myths about automation is that it aims to replace human employees. In reality, RPA is designed to augment human capabilities, not replace them. Automation excels at handling repetitive, rule-based tasks and lacks the creativity, emotional intelligence and critical thinking that humans bring to the workplace.

Organizations implementing RPA usually deploy their workforce to lead more strategic and value-adding tasks. Additionally, employees who worked on repetitive and manual data entry or reconciliation processes can focus on customer engagement, problem-solving and innovation. Research indicates that while automation may displace certain tasks, it also creates roles that require unique human skills like creativity and complex problem-solving. The most successful automation strategies focus on task automation rather than job elimination. This, in turn, creates collaborative environments where humans and digital workers complement each other’s strengths.