Is IDP just another buzzword or a tool that actually works?
Is Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) a real solution or just another overhyped technology?
In this episode, we take a practical and honest look at where IDP actually delivers results, where it struggles, and what to consider before rolling it out.
Why is IDP still relevant in 2025, even as e-invoicing and AI evolve? What makes it different from traditional OCR tools, and what’s realistically possible with today’s systems?
How IDP really works (and where it doesn’t)
Our guest is Tomasz Wierzbicki, Senior Automation Consultant at Office Samurai, who brings years of hands-on experience with document automation, including communication mining and real-life deployments in finance, HR, and compliance-heavy industries.
Together with host Andrzej Kinastowski, they break down how modern IDP works – from data extraction to validation – and explore how to connect it meaningfully to real business processes.
They also address the tough parts:
- Is manual validation still necessary?
- Are AI models truly more reliable than humans when booking invoices?
- What happens when documents are handwritten, scanned poorly, or contain nested tables?
Beyond invoices: where else IDP adds value
While invoices are a common starting point, the episode explores a broader range of use cases – HR documents, contracts, signatures, and more.
We also dive into why PDFs are still problematic, why we call them “digital paper” and whether upcoming e-invoicing regulations might reduce the need for IDP altogether.
AI, LLMs, and the future of document automation
As with any automation trend, there’s the question: “Can we just use ChatGPT instead?”
This episode explores where large language models (LLMs) and technologies like Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) fit into document processing and where they still fall short.
We also explain why Office Samurai continues to use UiPath Document Understanding and how to evaluate if IDP is worth the investment.
If you’re working in operations, automation, or digital transformation and want a grounded understanding of what IDP can and can’t do, this episode is for you.
