So, in this article, we will look at Microsoft’s overall vision, their emerging Power platform, and zoom in into their RPA – the Power Automate Desktop. RPA is a small part of the productivity platform that Microsoft is building. Power Automate Desktop is a much better RPA as we will see.īut from a grand scheme of things. They obviously found the internally developed offering lacking and hence shopped around. They have made it free for Windows 10 users and even plan to include PAD as part of future Microsoft Windows builds.Īs we know, they started by developing an RPA called UiFlows using open-source Selenium internally first. Power Automate Desktop is a revamped Winautomation that came with Microsoft’s Softomotive acquisition. They have now added a more powerful RPA to their Automation stack with the addition of Power Automate Desktop (PAD). Until now, a per-user license for Power Automate Desktop would set you back at least $15 per month.Microsoft has been dipping its toes into the relatively nascent RPA Automation market. Users who want to give Power Automate Desktop a try can now download it from Microsoft, but in the coming weeks, it’ll become part of Microsoft’s Insider Builds for Windows 10 and then eventually become a built-in part of Windows 10, all the way down to the standard Windows Home version.

It’s based on Microsoft’s acquisition of Softomotive in early 2020, but Microsoft has since extended Softomotive’s technology and integrated it deeper into its own stack. Power Automate Desktop originally launched last September.

It comes with 370 prebuilt actions that help you build flows across different applications, but its real power is in letting you build your own scripts to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Power Automate Desktop is what Microsoft calls its “attended Robotic Process Automation” solution, but you can think of it as a macro recorder on steroids.

Microsoft today announced that it is making Power Automate Desktop, its enterprise-level tool for creating automated desktop-centric workflows, available to all Windows 10 users for free.

Windows automate desktop