In brief:
- Adoption of Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is growing at a rapid pace as implementations scale and expansion into new use cases realize greater business value.
- UiPath was ranked as a Leader for the second consecutive year on the Everest Group Intelligent Document Processing PEAK Matrix Assessment 2024.
- Forrester calls UiPath a “formidable” process automation and document mining platform.
- Vendor assessments highlight solution strengths such as proprietary large language models that augment UiPath’s IDP capabilities, human-in-the-loop (HITL) accuracy verification, and the ability to combine document capabilities with UiPath’s broader AI-powered automation workflows.
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) has gained rapid traction in recent years as organizations try to find more efficient ways to extract strategic information from high volumes of documents – from structured files like spreadsheets to unstructured documents like emails, images, and handwritten forms. By automating the extraction, interpretation, and processing of data, IDP has proven to more than halve error rates, reduce the cost of manual document processing by 35%, and reduce time spent on document-related tasks by 17%.
Rapid advancements in AI technologies like machine learning (ML) are enabling IDP to accurately process unstructured data, improve extraction accuracy, handle diverse document formats, and shorten the extended model training times that prevented rapid deployment. In combination with Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and more recently, Generative AI (GenAI), IDP software is making it possible to achieve end-to-end automation of complex workflows such as claims processing, financial reporting, and customer onboarding.
Not surprisingly, the market for IDP platforms grew by over 16% in 2022, attracting many new providers, Gartner found. The average deal size for IDP platform solutions increased by 28% in the same period, as implementations scaled and expansion into new use cases realized greater business value.
As demand has grown, so has the number of companies offering intelligent document processing solutions, leading to confusion among buyers about the capabilities of tools on offer and if they are the right choice to help solve their organization’s pain points. This blog analyzes the best IDP software tools as rated by leading vendor assessments, and why UiPath stands out as a clear choice for those looking to build or scale their document processing capabilities.
What are the top Intelligent Document Processing tools on the market?
IDP solutions available on the market today range from low-cost solutions with basic extraction capabilities to tools integrating ML and advanced recognition for large enterprises with high-volume, complex document processing needs. There are also cutting-edge cognitive document processing solutions capable of processing both structured and unstructured documents, enabling end-to-end process automation with complex document workflows.
To help those researching the best document processing tools for their requirements, here is a list of the best intelligent document processing software based on the Everest Group Intelligent Document Processing PEAK Matrix Assessment 2024:
As shown in the figure above, Everest groups IDP providers into three main buckets based on market impact and ability to deliver products successfully. The assessment highlights UiPath as a Leader for the second consecutive year, once again claiming the top spot in the category.
UiPath is also positioned as a Leader in IDC’s Worldwide Intelligent Document Processing Software 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment as well as the Forrester Wave Document Mining And Analytics Platforms, Q2 2024. The latter assessment also awarded UiPath the highest scores in 14 criteria including AI: GenAI, automation, complex forms and images, innovation, and more.
UiPath vs. other IDP tools
Intelligent Document Processing evolved from Optical Character Recognition (OCR) by building upon the technology’s basic capability of converting printed or handwritten text into digital text. Today, it combines AI technologies such as computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing to understand context and extract, classify, and process information from diverse document types.
The earliest intelligent document processing companies were legacy OCR providers who forayed into IDP, such as ABBYY and Tungsten Automation (formerly Kofax) offering intelligent OCR tools. However, these are fast being overtaken by AI-led providers such as UiPath and Instabase.
UiPath, in fact, is one of only two providers (Kofax being the other) which gets over $50 million of its revenue from IDP alone, according to Gartner estimates. This reflects the traction and client base it has gained to establish itself from a size and scale perspective.
UiPath launched its IDP product in 2020 with the introduction of UiPath Document Understanding. Today, Document Understanding is available as a stand-alone solution as well as a complementary capability on UiPath’s business automation platform, which includes its #1 rated RPA solution, process mining, low-code apps, and other AI products.
Forrester calls it a “formidable” process automation and document mining platform, with its 2022 acquisition of Re:infer providing NLP capabilities and making it a “well-rounded” document mining platform.
The table below provides a quick snapshot of popular intelligent document processing companies categorized by their revenue from IDP.
Technology giants like Google and Microsoft have also rapidly taken market share by virtue of their vast client base and partner ecosystems, as well as their ability to offer discounted pricing to enterprise customers. Both feature as Leaders and Strong Performers in the above-mentioned vendor assessments.
Yet, the vendor assessments highlight that their IDP solutions are a good fit primarily for existing clients of their platforms (Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure) – to the exclusion of customers with significant business applications on other platforms. They lack turnkey solutions for those outside their product ecosystem or those who want to run document analytics applications on-premises.
UiPath, on the other hand, offers automation solutions for specific industries and domains and also works with partners like Auxis who build turnkey solutions based on UiPath’s Document Understanding product. UiPath also offers customers the ability to use its IDP solution in cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments.
Other pure-play RPA or process automation providers such as Automation Anywhere and SS&C Blue Prism have lagged in comparison to UiPath when it comes to building document mining capabilities and enabling customers’ adoption of document-centric process automation, the Forrester assessment said.
Another interesting source for document processing tools comparisons is G2, which ranks software and services based on real-time data from verified user reviews. As of June 5, G2 ranked the top intelligent document processing companies as follows:
- UiPath: 4.6/5 with 6,507 reviews
- Automation Anywhere: 4.5/5 with 5,486 reviews
- SS&C Blue Prism: 4.5/5 with 383 reviews
- Hyperscience: 4.5/5 with 41 reviews
G2 reviewers noted that when it comes to intelligent document processing, UiPath met business needs better, provided better ongoing product support, and rated UiPath’s feature updates and roadmaps better than the other top-rated IDP tools.
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What makes UiPath the top-rated IDP tool?
UiPath has made tremendous strides in a few short years to build and scale the capabilities, functionality, and reach of its IDP portfolio, which includes Document Understanding and Communications Mining – a new UiPath capability that turns business messages into actionable data.
UiPath offers both Generative AI and specialized AI models (a targeted method for applying AI and ML to specific enterprise use cases) for Document Understanding and Communications Mining that enable fast and accurate document processing. These models are trained to classify and extract relevant data from invoices, receipts, contracts, emails, customer communications, and other document formats.
In its competitive landscape analysis of Intelligent Document Processing platforms, Gartner called IDP large language models (LLMs) a disruptive force. LLMs are a category of Generative AI models trained on massive amounts of text data to generate human-like text or language-based content.
LLM-based IDP solutions could stand as potential substitutes for traditional ML-based offerings because of their ability to summarize information and understand the context of extracted data, especially in unstructured documents such as contracts and agreements.
When it comes to intelligent document processing, UiPath is arguably the only provider in its market size which has introduced proprietary LLMs to augment its ability to extract data from unstructured documents.
Unlike general-purpose LLM models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, which depend heavily on time-consuming prompt engineering, UiPath’s proprietary LLMs provide businesses with extensive tools to customize AI models to their exact requirements, allowing them to understand any document and a huge variety of message types. In addition, UiPath also offers pre-built connectors with best-of-breed LLM models such as ChatGPT, Claude by Anthropic, Google Vertex AI, etc.
The few others with proprietary LLMs in the IDP space include tech behemoth Google and AI startups Rossum and Indico Data.
Vendor assessments further highlight the following capabilities as key strengths bolstering the leadership position of UiPath’s IDP solution:
- UiPath’s AI-powered automation platform offers a range of capabilities besides IDP, including RPA, AI/ML, process intelligence, low-code application development, and process orchestration. As IDC stated, “UiPath’s success and broad market leadership as an AI-powered automation platform puts it in a great position for capturing growth as new and existing customers look to integrate a document component into their broader automation workflows.”
- UiPath IDP leverages different learning techniques to train ML models and offers human-in-the-loop (HITL) accuracy verification, driving model performance improvement over time by allowing users to review results and take actions on exceptional items.
- GenAI is leveraged in document mining processes including pre- and post-processing of data, classifying and categorizing documents, multiple deployment options, workflow orchestration, mining information from complex forms and documents, and broad security and regulatory compliance capabilities.
- UiPath in May also announced an integration between its automation platform and Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, becoming one of the first ecosystem partners for Microsoft’s AI assistant. The plugin enables powerful enterprise automations by leveraging UiPath capabilities including Document Understanding models to automate end-to-end business processes.
- UiPath Academy provides online IDP training courses, specialized AI professional certifications, and collaborations with e-learning platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning that offer UiPath training.
- Clients also appreciate UiPath’s comprehensive product roadmap and overall ease of use.
Key advantages offered by UiPath IDP
Organizations are increasingly looking to IDP to deliver tangible improvements in efficiencies, cost savings, customer satisfaction, employee prioritization, and competitive differentiation. UiPath stands out as a clear leader through its IDP advancements and evolution, which deliver the following benefits:
Consistent accuracy of data extraction and processing
Customers and partners give UiPath’s IDP tool high marks for its ability to consistently support and deliver accurate outputs across a range of document types and use cases. UiPath extractors based on rules, anchors, and intelligent templates accurately handle documents with fixed structure, tables, handwriting, signatures, and checkboxes, while pre-trained ML models can process less structured documents with minimal setup time. You can also combine any extractors in a hybrid approach to ensure the highest accuracy for custom business documents.
Ability to process a wide range of documents
UiPath Document Understanding leverages advanced AI and machine learning technologies to efficiently process structured, semi-structured, and unstructured formats, enabling seamless automation of complex document workflows. The tool’s context understanding capabilities also make it easy for knowledge workers to transfer data across documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, and applications, eliminating manual copy-paste tasks.
Ease of building and deploying IDP robots
UiPath Document Understanding provides a composable framework of drag-and-drop activities and Document Understanding Process Templates used to build end-to-end workflows in UiPath’s Studio software. This enables automation of more complex and cognitive processes involving high volumes of documents. In addition to native capabilities, you can bring your own models or incorporate leading partner solutions – extending the framework to diverse document types and business needs.
Effective human-in-the-loop accuracy verification
HITL is implemented effectively through UiPath Action Center, which enables approvals, escalations, and exceptions to be provided by humans before the job is sent back to the bot. Bots can further be re-trained using AI Center with data collected from Action Center, making their data extraction more accurate over time.
Faster scaling and ROI
Early-stage and mid-stage customers get access to the entire UiPath Business Automation platform, including IDP, to achieve scale and ROI more quickly.
Reliable implementation partners with process optimization experience
UiPath fosters a strong partner ecosystem, working with top-quality automation providers such as Auxis to help customers build fully automated enterprises using the latest, most robust, and highest-rated tools. Auxis is a UiPath Platinum Partner with an advanced automation team certified in ML and AI-powered Document Understanding, offering a proven track record of building IDP and other automation solutions tailored to meet clients’ specific business challenges. Auxis combines its strong technical capabilities with more than 25 years of process improvement and optimization experience to help establish and maintain an Automation Center of Excellence for your organization.
All these factors combine to demonstrate why UiPath is a leading contender for any organization looking to experiment or expand its use of IDP more broadly – and an excellent choice for clients seeking an integrated solution to tackle a wide range of automation use cases.
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