What Is Intelligent Print Automation?

Organizations are investing millions in data strategy, but their print operations and resulting document flows are a massive black hole. Intelligent Print Automation (IPA) is a modern, secure solution that unlocks data from print. Insights from IPA extend beyond who is printing what and where, to actioning the data through the print function, from Scan to Document or Workflows, and the native application of AI. This can look like: 

• Digitizing documents to minimize needless printing

• Intelligent document routing to esignature, eforms, and/or digital workflows

• AI-powered Scan to Workflow to analyze, process, and archive documents automatically

• Unlocking data from physical documents to be leveraged for AI capabilities 

"Print is a black box." "I have no visibility into what's happening there." "It's at the bottom of my priority list."

What seems like a low-priority blind spot today (e.g., whatever is happening within your legacy print environment) could expose your organization to serious risks tomorrow, not to mention stall your digital transformation efforts. Legacy print environments create attack vectors, open data to vulnerable breaches, and introduce points of failure that can bring critical operations to a halt. The financial impact? Potentially millions in lost productivity, not to mention regulatory penalties and compliance violations.

Security threats are tangible and measurable, but the hidden opportunity costs may be even greater. In an AI-driven world, can your print infrastructure even support the extraction and analysis of document data, much less enable AI to act on it intelligently? Or is that valuable information still trapped in silos, scattered across physical documents and disconnected systems? 

If your organization still relies on physical infrastructure and on-premises output management solutions, you're inherently locked out of applying AI capabilities to data and intellectual property you already own.

Intelligent Print Automation is the capability to consolidate, digitize, modernize, and enable simple automation of end user and critical system print with controlled document workflows. 

IPA represents a new category that bridges traditional print management with modern digital transformation. Unlike legacy print server-based solutions that simply route documents to printers or standalone output management systems that handle critical business printing in isolation, Intelligent Print Automation unifies end user and critical systems printing on a single cloud-native platform while actively enabling organizations to optimize print with a modern, digitally transformed organization.

This new category leverages AI and automation to intercept, analyze, and intelligently route documents; whether that means printing, scanning and digitizing, routing for esignature, or archiving automatically. 

Where traditional print management asks, "How do we print efficiently?", Intelligent Print Automation asks, "What is the outcome you want with this document and how can you get it there more effectively, via physical or digital workflows?"

Intelligent Print Automation is positioned at the intersection of print infrastructure, intelligent document processing, and workflow automation; designed for organizations that need to manage today's complex printing demands while simultaneously progressing toward paperless operations. 

IPA distinguishes itself through cloud-native architecture, universal and agnostic compatibility, enterprise-grade security (including Vasion is now FedRamp High ATO), and AI-powered capabilities that traditional print management and on-prem output management vendors can't match. )

At its core, IPA delivers value across three critical pillars:

1. Modernize

Traditional print servers are expensive, insecure, and difficult to manage. They require constant maintenance, regular patching, and specialized expertise. Each server represents another attack vector and point of failure.

Intelligent Print Automation eliminates legacy print servers entirely, replacing them with a cloud-native, serverless platform that delivers:

• Zero Trust Security Architecture: Built with modern security principles, including FedRAMP authorization

• Universal Compatibility: Support for any printer, OS, device, identity provider, cloud platform, ERP, or EHR system

• Self-Service Capabilities: Users can install printers themselves, dramatically reducing IT burden

2. Consolidate

Most organizations operate in silos, with separate systems managing end-user printing and critical system output. This duplication creates blind spots in security, compliance, and operational efficiency.

Intelligent Print Automation unifies all print and output management under a single control plane, providing enterprise-wide visibility, operational redundancy for zero downtime, and simplified administration.

3. Automate

IPA transforms multifunction printers into intelligent workflow triggers through:

• Scan-to-Automate: Trigger complex workflows with a single button press

• Print-to-Digital: Route documents directly into digital workflows

• Intelligent Document Processing: AI-powered OCR automatically extracts data and triggers downstream processes
  
  

Intelligent Print Automation with Vasion is truly the only option for organizations that need to combine physical and digital processes. Vasion offers a holistic approach, regardless of the size or complexity of environments, including highly regulated industries, in order to eliminate print hardware, consolidate print software, apply AI, and automate documents in order to secure and modernize for the final step of your digital transformation.