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Tech Thursday with SNOK: The Evolution of Business Automation with UiPath 2015–2025 – From RPA to Agentic Automation

Business process automation has undergone a genuine revolution over the past decade. What in 2015 was the domain of pioneers and experimenters has today…

Jacek Bugajski Jacek Bugajski ·
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Business process automation has undergone a genuine revolution over the past decade. What in 2015 was the domain of pioneers and experimenters has today become a strategic pillar of growth for every modern organisation. Along this journey, it is impossible to overlook the role of UiPath - the global automation leader - and Polish integrators such as SNOK, who not only deploy the latest technologies but also shape a culture of innovation within domestic organisations. Join us for a compelling account of how automation has transformed the world of work, business and technology - and why now is precisely the time to get on board.

Humble Beginnings, Great Ambitions - How the RPA Phenomenon Was Born

Picture the corporate world a decade ago. Employees spend hours copying data from Excel into SAP, manually retyping invoices, while HR departments drown in paperwork. Automation? Yes - but mainly in the form of Excel macros or costly, rigid IT integrations that irritated more than they helped. It was precisely then, in 2015, that UiPath - a company founded in Bucharest and later relocated to New York - began changing the rules of the game.

Their idea was simple, yet revolutionary: use computer vision so that “robots” could mimic human work within any system, without costly application changes. This was the birth of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) - a technology that made it possible to automate even the most “human” of tasks, from clicking to copying data. And although many initially approached this with scepticism (“robots clicking on behalf of people?!”), it quickly proved to be a resounding success.

From Tool to Platform - Milestones in UiPath’s Development

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2015-2018: The “Democratisation” of Automation

During these years, UiPath focused on accessibility. Rather than keeping the technology in the hands of programmers, the company created UiPath Studio - a low-code/no-code tool that allowed almost anyone to build automations. This was a breakthrough: automation ceased to be an IT domain and became a tool wielded by the business itself.

A notable fact: by 2017, UiPath already had more than 1,000 customers worldwide, and the first deployments in Poland appeared in banking and insurance.

2019-2021: AI, Cloud and Test Automation

In the years that followed, UiPath accelerated. It introduced AI Center, opening up integration with machine learning and natural language processing. Test automation, process mining, task mining - these were no longer simply “clicking robots”, but a platform for the full transformation of processes. In 2021, the company’s revenue exceeded USD 650 million, with customer numbers growing at a double-digit rate year on year.

2022-2025: Hyperautomation and Agentic Automation

The past few years have marked a genuine step change. UiPath now enables organisations not only to automate, but also to discover, optimise and manage automation across the entire organisation. The introduction of Autopilot, Agent Builder and integration with large language models (LLMs) has enabled automations to make decisions, learn, and collaborate with humans on an unprecedented scale.

A notable fact: in 2025, UiPath serves more than 2,300 customers generating annual revenue above USD 100,000, with ARR (annualised renewal run-rate) exceeding USD 1.69 billion.

How Business Needs Have Evolved - From Accounting to IT

Automation began with simple tasks: copying data, sending emails, generating reports. But appetite grew with each success. Today, entire end-to-end processes are automated, and organisations expect not only cost savings but also innovation.

  • Finance: Automation of invoicing, settlements, and compliance reporting. The result? A 75% reduction in process time, elimination of errors, and ROI measured in the hundreds of percent.

  • HR: Onboarding, document management, attrition analytics. Thanks to AI, automation makes it possible to predict trends and personalise the employee experience.

  • IT: Automated incident management, data migrations, and integration of legacy and cloud systems. This is no longer merely support - it is the heart of digital transformation.

  • Customer service: Chatbots, ticket automation, omnichannel support. Increased customer satisfaction, faster response times and lower operating costs.

Use Cases That Changed the Course of History

Poland at the Forefront of Automation

It would be remiss not to mention the Polish market, where automation became critical in the banking sector. When Poland introduced its so-called “credit holidays” scheme in 2022, banks faced the challenge of processing hundreds of thousands of applications within days. Thanks to UiPath, it was possible to automate these processes at record speed, avoiding the need to hire hundreds of new staff. The result? Smooth customer service, savings of millions of złoty, and prestigious industry awards.

“Thanks to UiPath robots, we reduced order processing time from weeks to hours. Without this technology, we would not have been able to meet the demands of the market and the regulator,” said Błażej Szczecki, Chief Transformation Officer at Bank Pekao S.A.

Global Deployments, Local Results

  • Australian Unity: Automating the processing of government forms delivered spectacular results for this Australian insurance company. The UiPath deployment automated 42,000 transactions within just 8 months, achieving a 94% automation success rate. The most tangible outcome was the recovery of as much as 22,493 hours of manual work - processing time per application fell from 30 minutes to just 4 minutes. This translated not only into substantial savings, but also into improved customer service quality and greater regulatory compliance.

  • Dentsu: This global marketing industry leader faced the challenge of rapidly migrating an enormous volume of data - over 2.8 million records - within a very tight timeframe. Within 6 days, 60 UiPath robots were built to carry out the entire process automatically. The result? 125,000 hours of work saved, full operational continuity, and elimination of the risk of human error. This deployment demonstrated how automation can support not only day-to-day processes, but also strategic transformation projects on a global scale.

  • Fleet Innovation (Finland): This Finnish car leasing company focused on automating the processing of purchase invoices. Thanks to UiPath, as much as 90% of invoices are now handled entirely automatically, freeing up time for managers and finance staff to focus on higher-value tasks such as customer service and business analysis. Automation also eliminated human error and significantly improved the quality of data within financial systems.

  • UiPath (internal CoE): UiPath itself is an example of how automation can transform an organisation from within. Over several years, automations built by the internal Centre of Excellence (CoE) recovered more than 306,000 hours of work, and in a single quarter of 2024 alone, UiPath robots generated more than 88,800 hours of additional operational capacity. Automation covered processes including finance (e.g. month-end close, invoice handling), HR (onboarding, benefits management), IT (helpdesk, incident management) and sales (quote generation, order processing).

  • State Street: One of the world’s largest asset managers deployed UiPath to automate reporting, transaction verification, and compliance processes. Report preparation time was reduced from days to hours, error risk was lowered, and regulatory compliance improved.

  • The Arnott’s Group: This Australian food manufacturer automated ordering, inventory management, and supplier settlements. The result was the unlocking of new production capacity, shorter order fulfilment times, and greater partner satisfaction.

  • WEX: This global payment services provider deployed UiPath Autopilot to automate routine customer service tasks, such as account updates, complaint handling, and confirmation generation. This enabled faster customer service and saved thousands of hours of work annually.

  • DNA Plc (Finland): This telecommunications operator automated the handling of orders and service changes. Robots process requests, monitor compliance with business rules, and automatically escalate exceptions, which reduced order processing time from days to hours and improved the customer experience.

  • VPBank (Vietnam): This bank automated more than 100 processes, including loan processing and document verification. The result was a significant reduction in processing time, fewer errors, and staff freed up for advisory tasks.

  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: The deployment of the ATOM platform, built on UiPath, automated the processing of applications and documents for veterans, accelerating benefit payments and reducing administrative backlogs.

Metrics, Figures, ROI - Does It Pay Off?

There is no automation without hard data. According to research by Forrester and IDC, deploying UiPath delivers an average ROI of 97% within the first six months, and the platform’s global economic impact will exceed USD 55 billion in 2025. The biggest benefits are:

  • Cost reduction: 25-80% in automated processes.

  • Productivity growth: an 85% increase in employee efficiency.

  • Error elimination: up to 95% fewer mistakes in routine tasks.

  • Fast return on investment: most organisations recover their outlay in under six months.

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With tools such as UiPath Insights, organisations can continuously monitor the results of automation, optimise processes, and make decisions based on hard data.

Technological Evolution - From RPA to Agentic Automation

RPA - The First Step

At the outset, UiPath robots were like diligent ants: copying, pasting, clicking - quickly, tirelessly, but without “intelligence”. That was enough to revolutionise work in finance, HR and logistics.

AI, NLP, OCR - Automation Learns to Understand the World

The following years brought AI integration: text recognition (OCR), document analysis, natural language processing (NLP). Robots began to “understand” invoices, emails, and even customer conversations. As a result, automation extended to processes that had previously seemed beyond the reach of machines.

Hyperautomation - Automating Everything

In 2022, Gartner declared hyperautomation one of the key IT trends. UiPath responded by developing tools for process mining, task mining and orchestrating automation across the entire organisation. This was no longer just robots, but an ecosystem of tools that themselves discover, optimise and deploy automation.

Agentic Automation - The Future Is Already Here

2024 and 2025 mark the entry into the era of agentic automation. What does this mean? Robots and AI agents no longer merely execute instructions - they can independently make decisions, learn, and collaborate with people on an unprecedented scale. For example, a UiPath agent can analyse hundreds of emails, independently allocate tasks, escalate issues, and report on outcomes - without human involvement.

SNOK - A Polish Leader in Automation Within the UiPath World

In Poland, one of the key players is SNOK - a company that has for years combined the UiPath world with the SAP ecosystem and other business systems. SNOK not only deploys automation but also builds its own components, trains citizen developers, and helps organisations move from simple robots to full digital transformation.

“We see that organisations that decide to deploy agentic automation achieve up to a 40-60% increase in efficiency in automated processes. This is no longer just automation - it is intelligent business transformation,” says Jan Domański, Head of Intelligent Automation at SNOK.

SNOK is also a pioneer in integrating UiPath with the latest AI models (such as BIELIK.AI or PLLuM), enabling Polish organisations to access world-class solutions. As a result, Polish banks, manufacturing companies and public institutions can automate processes faster, more cheaply and more securely than ever before.

Facts, Figures, Community

  • In 2025, the UiPath community numbers more than 2 million users worldwide, with tens of thousands of active developers and citizen developers in Poland.

  • UiPath Academy is the world’s largest educational platform for automation specialists - with more than 1.5 million people trained.

  • In 2024, UiPath received the “Solution Supplier of the Year for Banks” award at the Banking and Insurance Forum in Warsaw.

  • According to IDC, UiPath deployments worldwide have contributed to the creation of more jobs than they have displaced - automation frees people from routine work, allowing them to develop new competencies.

The Future of Automation - What Awaits Us in 2030?

Experts agree: automation is only just gathering momentum. By 2030:

  • 50% of Polish companies will be using AI and automation on a daily basis.

  • Full digitisation of public services will become the standard.

  • Agentic automation will become the norm - robots and AI will not only execute but also design business processes.

  • SNOK and UiPath will be leaders of this transformation, offering not only technology but also know-how, training and support in building a culture of innovation.

Practical Tips - How to Start Your Own Revolution

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  • Start with high-value processes: Automate where ROI is greatest - finance, HR, customer service.

  • Build competencies: Train citizen developers and work with partners such as SNOK.

  • Think in platform terms: Choose solutions that grow together with the organisation.

  • Measure results: Use tools such as UiPath Insights, monitor ROI, and optimise processes.

  • Plan for the long term: Automation is a marathon, not a sprint - build a culture of innovation.

Automation Is Not the Future - It Is the Present

The past decade has shown that automation is no longer a technological curiosity, but a foundation of modern business. Organisations that have embraced UiPath and partners such as SNOK are today outpacing the competition, responding more quickly to change, and building an advantage in a world where speed, flexibility and innovation are what matter. And this is only the beginning.

“Automation is no longer just a tool - it’s a new way of operating and innovating.” - Daniel Dines, CEO, UiPath

If you are wondering whether automation is worth pursuing, the answer is simple: you cannot afford to fall behind. The future belongs to those who can bring together people, robots and AI within a single ecosystem. And it is precisely in this world that SNOK, UiPath and Polish organisations have the opportunity to become true leaders.

About the Authors

This article was prepared by the Intelligent Automation team at SNOK under the leadership of Jan Domański. This is a multidisciplinary team of experts specialising in the design, implementation and scaling of business process automation solutions using the latest technologies, including UiPath, artificial intelligence and hyperautomation tools.

Under Jan Domański’s leadership - an experienced automation leader and practitioner - the SNOK team delivers comprehensive projects for major Polish and international organisations across the financial, manufacturing, services and public administration sectors. The Intelligent Automation experts combine deep technological knowledge with a business-driven approach to digital transformation, supporting clients at every stage of the journey: from process analysis, through implementation, to the development of citizen developer competencies.

The team regularly shares its knowledge at industry conferences, workshops and webinars, and actively contributes to building the Polish automation and innovation community.

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The following sources were used in this article:

Tematy: Tech Thursday AI Automation UiPath Autopilot

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