Introduction
Automation Anywhere is one of the original robotic process automation (RPA) vendors, building software robots that mimic human interactions with a computer to complete repetitive, rules-based back-office tasks. Founded in 2003 in San Jose, California, by Mihir Shukla, Ankur Kothari, Neeti Mehta Shukla, and Rushabh Parmani, the company predates the current AI boom by two decades and has spent recent years repositioning its core RPA business around what it calls “Agentic Process Automation,” combining traditional bots with AI agents that can handle less structured work.
Unlike its closest rival, UiPath, Automation Anywhere remains privately held, and reporting in early 2026 indicated the company was in talks to merge with public company C3 AI in a deal that would effectively take Automation Anywhere public through a reverse transaction rather than a traditional IPO.
What the company does
Automation Anywhere’s platform, the Agentic Process Automation (APA) System, lets enterprises automate business processes using a combination of traditional software robots for well-defined, rules-based tasks and AI agents that can reason over less structured data and handle exceptions that a rigid bot script would previously have escalated to a human. The company also sells purpose-built agentic solutions for specific business functions, including finance operations, IT service management, HR, and customer support, aimed at helping departments move from automating individual tasks to running entire processes with greater autonomy.
Who it serves
Automation Anywhere’s customers are large and mid-sized enterprises across financial services, healthcare, insurance, and other industries with high volumes of repetitive back-office work, typically engaging IT and operations leaders who are expanding earlier RPA deployments into broader, department-by-department “autonomous enterprise” initiatives, in CEO Mihir Shukla’s words. The company has reported that its base of customers spending more than $1 million in annual recurring revenue grew 23% year over year, alongside more than doubling its agentic customer base, reflecting a shift from smaller automation pilots toward larger-scale deployments.
Company background
Mihir Shukla, Ankur Kothari, Neeti Mehta Shukla, and Rushabh Parmani founded Automation Anywhere in 2003 in San Jose, California, building one of the earliest commercial robotic process automation platforms well before the category became a mainstream enterprise software segment. Shukla has served as CEO and board chairman throughout the company’s history. Automation Anywhere has raised more than $800 million in funding, according to data compiled by Forge Global, and was valued at $6.8 billion in a 2019 private funding round, a valuation that has persisted in later secondary-market estimates as the company has not raised additional primary funding rounds or filed for an initial public offering. In January 2026, Reuters reported that Automation Anywhere was in talks to merge with C3 AI, a publicly traded enterprise AI vendor whose founder Thomas Siebel had recently stepped down as CEO before returning to the role; under the terms described in that reporting, Automation Anywhere would effectively acquire C3 AI and become a public company as a result, though the deal had not been confirmed or completed as of the reporting date.
Product and AI capabilities
The APA System integrates Automation Anywhere’s long-established robotic process automation engine with newer AI-agent capabilities, letting a single workflow combine deterministic bot actions with AI agents that can interpret unstructured documents, make judgment calls within defined guardrails, and hand off exceptions intelligently rather than failing outright. At its Imagine 2026 customer conference, the company introduced EnterpriseClaw, developed in collaboration with Cisco, Nvidia, Okta, and OpenAI, which is designed to let organizations run and govern AI agents consistently across cloud platforms, enterprise systems, desktops, and secure infrastructure, addressing a common enterprise concern about AI agents operating without adequate oversight once deployed at scale. The company has said AI-powered offerings accounted for 61% of its software bookings in a recent quarter, and that its agentic customer base more than doubled as customers convert early AI pilots into scaled production deployments, often driven by forward-deployed engineers embedded directly with customer teams.
Key developments
Reuters reported on January 28, 2026, citing The Information, that Automation Anywhere was in merger talks with public company C3 AI, a deal that would take Automation Anywhere public through a reverse transaction if completed. The company separately reported that AI-powered offerings drove 61% of a recent quarter’s software bookings, with $1 million-plus ARR customers growing 23% year over year. At its Imagine 2026 event, Automation Anywhere launched EnterpriseClaw for governing AI agents across enterprise infrastructure, and on July 2, 2026, the company reported its largest outcome-based transaction in company history alongside its tenth consecutive quarter of non-GAAP profitability.
Why it matters
Automation Anywhere’s reported merger talks with C3 AI illustrate one of the more unusual paths private AI-adjacent companies are considering to reach public markets, alongside traditional IPOs and SPAC mergers, particularly for RPA-era vendors that have delayed public listings for years despite sustained profitability. Its shift toward outcome-based, agentic deals — rather than simple per-bot software licensing — also reflects a broader change in how enterprise automation vendors are pricing AI-era products, tying revenue more closely to business outcomes than to seats or bot counts.
Sector context
Within Brel’s enterprise software coverage, Automation Anywhere is the closest direct competitor to UiPath, the other major RPA-era vendor now repositioning around agentic automation, though UiPath has been publicly traded since 2021 while Automation Anywhere remains private and reportedly weighing a reverse-merger path to public markets. Automation Anywhere’s EnterpriseClaw governance layer also echoes the agent-governance ambitions of platform vendors such as ServiceNow, though Automation Anywhere approaches the problem from an automation-first starting point rather than a broader IT workflow platform.
Sources and references
This profile draws on Automation Anywhere’s official press releases on its quarterly bookings and AI momentum, alongside Reuters’ reporting on its reported merger talks with C3 AI.
- PR Newswire — Automation Anywhere Q1 FY2027 results (2026)
- Reuters — C3 AI–Automation Anywhere merger talks (2026)
- Automation Anywhere — Q4 AI bookings press release (2026)