Robotic process automation (RPA) is the term used for software tools that partially or fully automate human activities that are manual, rule-based, and repetitive. They work by replicating the actions of an actual human interacting with one or more software applications to perform tasks such as data entry, process standard transactions, or respond to simple customer service queries. Indeed, the “chatbot” that has started to become ubiquitous on websites is almost always a robotic process automation tool, not a human.