Task mining is a technology that captures the user-level activity that powers business processes. In simple terms, task mining answers the question of how people are spending their time by focusing on the desktop and recording all of the interactions between a user and their computer. By recording and analyzing these desktop actions, task mining builds a highly accurate view of real-world workflows — revealing inefficiencies, opportunities for automation, and process gaps that may otherwise go unnoticed.
The process intelligence that results from task mining delivers a granular, end-to-end understanding of enterprise operations.
Understand how work gets done with task mining
According to the 2025 Gartner® Market Guide for Task Mining Tools, “Task mining is evolving from a back-office tool into a strategic enabler of enterprise AI.” As organizations accelerate their digital transformation efforts, task mining is essential for understanding how work really happens — and where to apply automation and AI effectively.
Gartner defines task mining as a technique to infer information from low-level event data available in UI logs from a desktop or a device. While traditional process analysis relies on interviews and documentation, task mining provides a direct, data-driven view into how work actually gets done.
Per Gartner, “with task mining, you’re not guessing how work happens — you’re capturing it directly from the source. This real-world data becomes the foundation for process intelligence, enabling better decisions, faster automation, and measurable improvements.”
How task mining works
One of the most powerful aspects of task mining is that it doesn't require any structured data to get started. It works by observing employees perform their work as usual — no process documentation, integration, or special system access required.
Data is typically collected through a combination of computer vision (e.g., screenshots) and operating system queries to capture every click, keystroke, and interface interaction. Then, machine learning algorithms identify patterns and structures within the data to generate actionable insights.
What sets task mining apart is not just how it captures data — but what that data unlocks. Instead of relying on assumptions, teams can see exactly how work happens and make evidence-based decisions at every stage of process improvement. Whether you're identifying inefficiencies, validating automation candidates, or measuring performance post-implementation, task mining provides the visibility to move with confidence.
How to ensure employee and customer privacy when task mining
Protecting employee and customer privacy is a critical consideration in any task mining initiative. A responsible approach includes giving team members transparency, control, and assurance that sensitive data is protected throughout the process.
Mimica, for example, anonymizes all personally identifiable information (PII) by default to ensure compliance with security standards like GDPR and HIPAA. Team members are also in full control of when they start and stop recording their work and can exclude sensitive or non-crucial applications from capture.
This privacy-first design ensures that Mimica can generate results in as little as two weeks while maintaining high standards of data security — powering rapid discovery, accurate automation scoping, and continuous improvement.
Key benefits of Mimica’s task mining
Automated, more accurate process discovery
Automatically identifies when and where processes occur by analyzing repeated behavior patterns across employees.
Detailed, comprehensive process mapping
Generates process maps with full visibility into steps, decision points, variants, and exceptions — down to the screenshot level.
Prioritized process improvement recommendations
Surfaces metrics like handle time, variance, and automation potential to guide optimization efforts, build stronger business cases, and maximize ROI.
Fastest speed to insights
Does not require extensive internal resources or manual work to deploy, and generates insights faster. In Mimica's case – in as little as two weeks.
Use cases for task mining
Intelligent automation
Task mining is a foundational capability for scaling intelligent automation, including agentic AI, GenAI, IDP, OCR, and RPA. It helps solve key challenges:
- Discovery: Automatically identifies and prioritizes automation opportunities in existing processes
- Speed: Cuts down development timelines with instant, accurate process maps
- Quality: Captures real process behavior, not just "happy path" assumptions
→ Read how task mining powers intelligent automation
AI and agentic AI readiness
Task mining lays the groundwork for emerging AI use cases by generating the high-fidelity process data needed to train, validate, and govern autonomous systems.
→ Learn how task mining supports agentic AI adoption.
Cost reduction
Task mining helps discover hidden savings. By leveraging real data from business processes, users can identify cost-cutting opportunities and build a clear roadmap for growth.
→ Explore how task mining identifies cost-saving opportunities
Analytics and optimization
Task mining allows users to benchmark key workforce productivity metrics and pinpoint process improvement opportunities:
- Average handle time and distribution
- Process variance and structured data coverage
- Manual rework
- Bottlenecks
- Non-standardized activities
→ Learn more about the use cases for task mining in our 2025 Gartner Market Guide for Task Mining Tools summary.
Real-world case studies by department
Because task mining observes how work happens at the desktop level, it can be applied in any function where knowledge workers interact with software. Common departmental processes that enterprises use task mining to improve include:
- Finance & accounting: accounts payable, invoice processing, reporting
- HR: onboarding, payroll, and compliance workflows
- Operations: supplier onboarding, freight pay, back-office processes
- IT: helpdesk ticketing and triage
- Customer service: call center workflows, issue resolution, follow-ups
These teams often use task mining to reduce costs, uncover automation opportunities, and improve service delivery.
→ See more task mining case studies
Gain insights in just two weeks with Mimica
Whether you're identifying automation opportunities, mapping undocumented processes, or laying the foundation for agentic AI, Mimica delivers fast, high-quality insights with virtually no manual effort and:
- Generates 100% accurate process maps across teams
- Exports ready-to-use PDDs and BPMN diagrams
- Analyzes tasks by time spent, automation ROI, and ease of automation
- Continuously monitors conformance and productivity metrics
- Prioritizes initiatives based on data — not assumptions
Ready to see what you can uncover in just two weeks? Request a demo to see Mimica in action.
This article was originally published on July 31, 2024.
