This is great, but a part of me wonders if our industry isnt putting a bandaid on a problem that we ourselves created.
Consider your typical early-2000s era Windows app. It would expect a mouse, but for power users, keyboard shortcuts would be available for every action, even if clunky. For example, Alt F tab tab tab to get to some input field, enter text, tab Alt R Return.
By about 2015 these were all straightforwardly scriptable with AutoHotkey amd similar tools.
But too late: by 2015 even Windows users were using web apps, where the keyboard bindings are variable or non existent, where the entire UI can change overnight, etc. I see some RPA approaches desperately trying to decode the DOM or match pixel elements. It's wild, as you point out.
I guess what I'm wondering if going after legacy Windows apps is a small TAM already largely solved, whereas the SPA/webapp market is gigantic, growing every day, and woefully, miserably, broken as far as automation is concerned.
Great point! The issue with hotkeys is a series of hardcoded keyboard shortcuts is likely to fail due to unexpected popups which are quite frequent. Cyberdesk can automate entire workflows with keyboard shortcuts only, and we typically push for that, but where it really shines is its ability to handle anomalous situations and ensure the workflow works every time.
As for webapps, Cyberdesk is equipped to automate them just as much as it can automate desktop apps, and it's been performing just as well on web apps as it is on desktop apps. To our agent a webapp and a desktop app are the same thing. just a bunch of shapes and text on the screen. We just emphasize the legacy apps in our messaging because there's a strong need for that. Almost every customer we've talking to has tried RPA but to no avail
Consider your typical early-2000s era Windows app. It would expect a mouse, but for power users, keyboard shortcuts would be available for every action, even if clunky. For example, Alt F tab tab tab to get to some input field, enter text, tab Alt R Return.
By about 2015 these were all straightforwardly scriptable with AutoHotkey amd similar tools.
But too late: by 2015 even Windows users were using web apps, where the keyboard bindings are variable or non existent, where the entire UI can change overnight, etc. I see some RPA approaches desperately trying to decode the DOM or match pixel elements. It's wild, as you point out.
I guess what I'm wondering if going after legacy Windows apps is a small TAM already largely solved, whereas the SPA/webapp market is gigantic, growing every day, and woefully, miserably, broken as far as automation is concerned.