UiPath: A Modest Proposal for Automated Fortunes

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Right then. Artificial intelligence. It’s arrived, hasn’t it? Not the sort that ponders the meaning of existence over a cup of lukewarm tea, mind you. More the sort that efficiently sorts invoices and, if you believe the hype, will soon be writing poetry that’s only marginally worse than some of the stuff published these days. We’re currently in the age of ‘Generative AI’, which is a fancy way of saying ‘computers that are surprisingly good at copying things’. But the next big thing, the whisper in the server rooms, is ‘agentic AI’. And that, my friends, is where things get…interesting.

Agentic AI isn’t about robots developing existential crises. It’s about programs that, once given a task within their rather limited understanding of the universe, can simply… do it. Autonomously. With minimal human supervision. Think of it as a particularly diligent (and utterly lacking in imagination) apprentice who never asks for a raise.1

The Curious Case of UiPath

Now, finding a pure-play investment in this burgeoning field is proving trickier than herding cats… made of electricity. Most companies dabble. But UiPath (PATH 3.77%) is, as far as I can tell, rather committed. And that, in itself, is noteworthy. The market, as of Thursday, values it at a mere $8.2 billion. A pittance, frankly, in the grand scheme of things. Though it did experience a bit of a wobble recently, prompted by the CEO selling some stock.2 Perfectly reasonable behaviour for a human being, of course, but the market is rarely concerned with reason.

UiPath isn’t building sentient overlords. It’s in the business of Robotic Process Automation – or RPA. Essentially, it provides software robots to perform the tedious, mind-numbing tasks that humans used to do. Data entry, file sorting, transaction processing. The sort of work that slowly erodes the soul. But, crucially, it needs doing. And if a silicon-based entity can do it without complaint, well, that’s progress, isn’t it?3

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The demand appears to be there. As of their last quarterly report, UiPath boasted nearly 10,900 customers, with over 2,500 generating at least $100,000 in annual recurring revenue. That’s a lot of automated invoices. And the numbers are trending upwards. ARR increased 11% year-over-year, and sales rose 16%. Not bad for a company automating the mundane.

Their client list is also…impressive. They’ve managed to snag Alphabet, Microsoft, and even OpenAI as customers. Which is a bit like selling shovels during a gold rush. Someone has to provide the tools, and UiPath seems to have a rather sturdy shovel indeed.

So, there it is. A company with a clear niche, growing revenue, and a client list that reads like a who’s who of the tech world. All with a market capitalization that barely scrapes past $8 billion. It’s not a guarantee of riches, of course. But it’s a rather intriguing proposition. And in the current climate, a little intrigue is worth a great deal.


1 The apprenticeship model, of course, is based on the ancient principle of exploiting cheap labour. But let’s not dwell on that.
2 The CEO’s actions, while perfectly legal, are often interpreted by the market as a sign of impending doom. It’s a curious quirk of human psychology.
3 One must always question the ethical implications of automating tasks that provide meaning and purpose to human lives. But that’s a discussion for another day.

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2026-01-16 09:22