# What are Digital Workers? + Examples

Digital workers are a concept that’s been around for quite some time now. But, in recent years they’ve sprung back to the fore, taking on a whole new meaning in the context of the AI revolution.

The idea of replacing human activities with computerized systems isn’t new. What is changing, though, is the kind of work that can be handled without requiring a real-life human being.

Of course, this also represents a huge opportunity for early adopters.

Today, we’re covering everything you need to know about implementing digital workers within real-world business processes.

Specifically, we’re diving into:

- [What are digital workers?](/content/blog/ai-agents/digital-workers/#what-are-digital-workers/index.html)
- [Types of digital workers](/content/blog/ai-agents/digital-workers/#types-of-digital-workers/index.html)
- [Top internal functions for digital workers](/content/blog/ai-agents/digital-workers/#top-internal-functions-for-digital-workers/index.html)
- [Digital worker architecture, integrations, and design patterns](/content/blog/ai-agents/digital-workers/#digital-worker-architecture-integrations-and-solutions/index.html)
- [Real-world applications and examples](/content/blog/ai-agents/digital-workers/#real-world-applications-and-examples/index.html)

Let’s start with the basics.

## What are digital workers?

At the highest level, a digital worker is any software system that replicates, either entirely or in large part, a role within a business process that would otherwise be carried out by a human colleague.

Naturally, this is highly tied to task automation more generally.

Previously, digital workers were largely limited to more repetitious job functions, where the same actions are applied on the same inputs, to create the same outputs. For example, data entry or basic processing.

More recently, though, most definitions of digital workers have come to include some degree of _autonomy_.

This means that systems can interact with their environment, including assessing contextual information and connected data in order to independently decide which available actions to take in a given scenario.

### Why are digital workers gaining popularity?

As we said earlier, interest in digital workers has risen greatly over the past couple of years. This has been driven by two distinct forces.

Firstly, the scale and complexity of IT operations in most organizations have massively increased. This means managing cloud infrastructure, SaaS tools, on-prem systems, and devices across global user bases.

At the same time, changes in technology have rapidly transformed what’s possible here.

The way we build automated workflows has changed greatly over the past few years - first with the rise of no/low-code solutions, and more recently with agentic AI.

### Digital workers vs other automation tools

Before we go any further, it’s useful to outline the relationship between digital workers and automation solutions more clearly. Essentially, digital workers execute entire workflows or functions that would otherwise be performed by human colleagues.

This requires:

- **Multi-system interaction**: Pulling and pushing data across different platforms via APIs, screen scraping, or database queries.
- **Decision-making logic**: Applying business rules or AI-based reasoning to choose between different actions based on input data.
- **End-to-end process ownership**: Managing complete workflows rather than isolated tasks.

### Benefits

We can also think in more detail about why digital workers are fast becoming a top priority for all kinds of organizations.

These include:

- **Cost optimization** 
- **Scalability** 
- **Consistency & accuracy** 
- **Enhanced resolution times** 
- **Security & compliance** 
- **Availability** 
- **Freeing up human resources**

### Implementation challenges

However, as with any other improvement initiative, none of these benefits are guaranteed. The key implementation challenges for digital workers include:

- **Technical resources** 
- **Integrations** 
- **Process standardization** 
- **Governance & oversight** 
- **Change management & cultural resistance** 
- **Maintenance, dependencies & version control** 
- **Up-front investment**

## Types of digital workers

There are two common categories that we must be aware of here.

| Criteria | RPA-Based Digital Worker | Agentic AI-Based Digital Worker |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Core Tech | Rules, scripts, UI automation | LLM + memory + tool use + orchestration |
| Logic Type | Deterministic | Probabilistic, goal-driven |
| Use Cases | Repetitive tasks (e.g. data entry) | Variable tasks (e.g. triaging, answering, updating) |
| Adaptability | Low - breaks with change | High - handles change and ambiguity |
| Learning | None | Learns from instructions, context, and feedback |
| Best For | High-volume, predictable processes | Dynamic, knowledge-rich tasks |

### RPA solutions

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one of the original techniques that sparked the concept of digital workers. Essentially, this means mimicking user actions across existing tools.

The benefit of this approach is that it’s relatively easy and inexpensive to implement.

### AI agents

In recent years, digital workers have become more tightly tied to agentic AI. These are systems that are able to act autonomously, handling unstructured data and making probabilistic decisions.

## Top internal functions for digital workers

Many of the top functions for digital workers relate to internal services such as IT, HR, finance, and facilities.

## Digital worker architecture, integrations, and solutions

With a better understanding of the real-world functions we can target with digital workers, we can think in more detail about their specific makeup.

### Key components:
- **Input layer** 
- **Memory and retrieval** 
- **Reasoning and orchestration** 
- **Action layer** 
- **Governance and feedback**

## Real-world applications and examples

It’s helpful to think about some real-world examples of digital workers in action.

### Basic IT service requests
- **Inputs** 
- **Context** 
- **Reasoning** 
- **Action**

Other types of digital workers could be triggered more manually, with a human colleague initiating a specific workflow.