UiPath announced at the UiPath DevCon 2024 event a host of new features in its platform designed to enable developers to build, test, and accelerate implementation of automations.
UiPath DevCon gathers hundreds of AI and automation developers, architects, engineers, testers, and product managers for a deep dive into innovation and collaboration possibilities for automation creators within the UiPath Business Automation Platform.
“Developers remain at the center of our innovation efforts. Our quest to reimagine DevOps for automation developers with AI led us to the creation of UiPath Autopilot,” said Munil Shah, Chief Technology Officer, UiPath Automation Cloud. “We are infusing Generative AI across all our products. We believe when AI is combined with automation, magic happens. It’s like combining an intelligent brain with highly capable body to carry out powerful tasks.”
“With the UiPath developer community in excess of 2 million, and developers and learners across 43 countries, the innovations we provide this community are absolutely essential in the AI and automation era,” said Daniel Dines, UiPath Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer. “To build modern automations, it is not only about driving the UI. Developers also need API integrations, data, and AI solutions. We are making it possible for developers to access all these constructs in one integrated platform.”
At UiPath DevCon, UiPath announced:
* UiPath Autopilot for Test Suite: now in public preview, Autopilot for Test Suite provides a collection of advanced AI capabilities designed to boost the productivity of testers throughout the entire testing lifecycle. Autopilot for Test Suite includes:
* AI-Powered Quality Checks: acts as an expert reviewer at a tester’s fingertips analysing requirements, from popular lifecycle tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps or documents such as a PDD, process design document.
* AI-Powered Test Design: generates manual tests with step-by-step instructions from developers’ requirements and supporting docs, such as workflows or design documents.
* AI-Powered Test Automation: converts any text, including manual test steps, into automated tests in UiPath Studio Desktop with little effort; and
* AI-Powered Test Insights: provides real-time, actionable insights into the test case portfolio, empowering rapid issue resolution and continuous improvement almost instantaneously.
“As organisations increasingly adopt GenAI and code assistants to create code more quickly, it is imperative to incorporate effective, continuous testing to help ensure code quality,” said Melinda Ballou, Research Director for IDC’s Agile ALM, Quality and Portfolio Strategies service. “IDC research also shows the benefits of AI and GenAI for software quality efficiencies to support high velocity software deployment, along with appropriate guardrails and governance. UiPath’s public preview of Autopilot for Test Suite enables users the opportunity to explore and expand existing adoption with these additional capabilities.”
UiPath Automation Marketplace and Solution Accelerators: to execute an automation idea, developers can jumpstart the journey by searching the thousands of building blocks and templates in the Automation Marketplace. UiPath has made key investments in its Solution Accelerators, a pre-built automation framework designed to help developers implement faster and expedite time-to-value. Solution Accelerators are high impact use cases defined by industry experts and customers built using UiPath best practices. A typical accelerator contains workflows, models, process template, custom connector, and documentation – everything developers need to get started.
Generative AI Connectors: UiPath continues to support customers’ automation projects by expanding its collection of Generative AI connectors. These connectors accelerate infusing the power of Gen AI into automations. Using Gen AI connectors, developers can easily access curated AI activities designed to weave AI into every use case transaction, and interaction, such as: generating text content and summarization for sales, marketing, social media, and customer support; classifying images into thousands of categories; and using translation and transliteration to support global workforces. Each UiPath connector enables developers to leverage one or multiple of the industry-leading LLM providers—including OpenAI, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex, Anthropic, and others.
Improved developer capabilities for Integration Service: Developers are further supported by new enhancements for Connector Builder, making it easier to create customised API integrations. A new Activity Designer enables developers to visually design their own activities, while taking advantage of improved support for events—all through a low code UX.
Availability of new India data centre: UiPath Automation Cloud expands globally with new data centres, including in India, as of April 2024. This expansion offers opportunities for public and private sector customers and partners to strategically position their infrastructure, applications, and data. The India data centre meets the growing demand for cloud services, focusing on business continuity and compliance. High availability and low latency provide a solid foundation for cloud deployment, improving accessibility, and service speed for customers.
In addition, this week at the 2024 UiPath Academic Summit held in Bengaluru, UiPath unveiled initiatives to ensure access and opportunity for Indians to take on new roles in the era of AI and automation. The UiPath Academic Alliance program is working with FutureSkills Prime, other partners, and UiPath customers to equip 500,000 Indians with AI and automation skills by 2027.