How China’s AI Alliance Is Shaping RPA Evaluation Standards

On May 13, the China Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance (AIIA) organized an "RPA Technology Sharing Salon" with participation from RPA China, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, and many leading enterprises such as Huawei, Avantify, and China Construction Bank. Engineer Zhang Weimin of the Academy attended as a special guest and introduced the AIIA’s RPA evaluation and testing work.

01. Evaluation System Overview

The AIIA RPA evaluation system consists of three major parts and six specifications. The first part addresses the RPA project process and includes the RPA Business Process Evaluation Specification , RPA Project Delivery Management Specification , and RPA Project Implementation Operation Specification . The second part covers a series of Security and Risk Management specifications. The third part focuses on product and service capabilities, comprising the RPA Product Capability Specification and the RPA Service Capability Specification .

02. RPA Development Overview

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses UI‑level technologies to mimic human actions and execute rule‑based, repeatable tasks. Its key benefits include rapid deployment, flexible adjustment, on‑demand scaling, and efficiency gains. RPA is widely applied in banking, manufacturing, real estate, education, logistics, telecom, healthcare, and functional areas such as HR, finance, audit, and risk control.

To broaden automation scope and break technical barriers, many vendors are integrating AI, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision with RPA, a trend dubbed "RPA 4.0". This cognitive RPA can handle unstructured data and enable end‑to‑end automated decision processes.

03. Rationale for Building the AIIA RPA Evaluation System

A typical RPA workflow from a customer perspective includes technology suitability assessment, product selection, pilot projects, promotion, management and delivery design, enterprise‑scale construction, and ongoing operation and maintenance. Service providers deliver evaluation, commercial planning, development, testing, training, capability building, and continuous operation based on the vendor’s tools.

Zhang noted that the lack of industry‑wide implementation standards and clear criteria for vendor and integrator capabilities leads to uncertainty in project success. The AIIA aims to unite vendors, AI technology firms, software service providers, and cloud service providers to launch an evaluation and testing program that helps users avoid pitfalls and improve overall success rates.

04. Future Work Plan for the "AIIA RPA Evaluation System"

The alliance began preparatory work in Q1 2020 and launched the "AIIA RPA Evaluation System" project in April. The May 13 salon was used to gather more partners. In June, the evaluation group will start drafting the evaluation specifications, with testing activities slated for the second half of the year. The AIIA will continue to refine the framework, add new standards, and adapt to technological advances.