In 2024, 66% of companies had automated at least one business process and with the rapid adoption of AI, this number keeps growing. Since most business applications run on the web, many workflows depend on browser automation to connect the dots.

And, everyday, people log in, fill out forms, move data, monitor sites, and write reports. These tasks are relatively simple, but over a long duration and at scale, they consume a great deal of time. Browser automation solves this by scripting the actions once and allowing the system to repeat them consistently.

Selenium, Puppeteer, and Playwright are some of the popular browser automation tools out there. Most of these were originally developed for software developers to perform browser test automation but now drive automation across a wide range of business workflows. And, they keep expanding to support Web 4.0, the autonomous web.

The real strength of browser automation is in mechanizing repetitive, operations-intensive processes. Whether it’s transferring data, tracking changes on content, or generating reports at scheduled times, automation produces the same outcome every time. As a result it reduces manual effort and human errors while allowing to scale with the business.

#1 Web Scraping and Data Extraction

Not all applications provide direct APIs or cost effective methods of extracting publicly or internally available data. Web browser automation solves this by allowing automated systems to collect online data and turn it into structured outputs for analysis. It’s a practical way to turn scattered online information into structured datasets that teams can actually use.

Common use cases include:

• Price monitoring: checking competitor prices of e-commerce sites

• Market research: collecting reviews, product information, or listings for analysis

• News aggregation: collecting headlines or stories from various sources

The challenge is that most modern sites load content dynamically or split it across many pages. Tools like Selenium or Playwright help dynamic loading by waiting for elements to appear and automatically navigating through pagination:

# Selenium (Python): click "Next" until it's disabled/absent
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.common.exceptions import NoSuchElementException

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get("https://example.com/products?q=shoes")

def scrape_page():
    items = driver.find_elements(By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".product-card")
    for it in items:
        name  = it.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".name").text
        price = it.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, ".price").text
        print(name, price)

while True:
    scrape_page()
    try:
        next_btn = driver.find_element(By.CSS_SELECTOR, "a.next:not(.disabled)")
        next_btn.click()
    except NoSuchElementException:
        break

driver.quit()

#2 Automated Testing of Web Applications

For instance, a retailer can have a script to capture competitor discounts every morning, and a financial analyst can pull news feeds into one dashboard. The result is fresh data, less manual work, and faster time to decisions.

Web application testing is repetitive in nature. Each new feature, bug fix, or update should be tested on different browsers and devices. Browser test automation saves time by running scripted tests to simulate a real user interaction in multiple browsers and allowing to run these tests in parallel.

Common use cases include:

• Functional testing: verifies logins, forms, and navigation work as expected

• Regression testing: ensure new changes don’t break existing features

• Cross-browser tests: run the test in various browsers

Integration with CI/CD pipelines helps to create quality gates that make the tests run continuously with each code change. We can design these tests to run locally, on every pull request or even after merging a branch. This helps to follow shift left testing reducing the cycle time to detect and fix errors at the soonest moment of detection.

One of the main challenges in the past is that the automated scripts are tightly coupled with the application UI. This is rapidly changing with AI browser agents which allows simple AI prompts to perform complex test executions.

As an example, the development team can deploy new code, run the complete suite of browser tests automatically, and receive feedback in minutes. The result is faster delivery and more reliable applications for end users.

#3 Website Monitoring

Maintaining a website in good health is important for any brand. Manually checking the website health is not practical and we need automation to track performance, uptime and other metrics while notifying teams when something is off.

Common use cases include:

• Uptime monitoring: ensuring that the site is online and accessible

• Performance checks: monitor loading speeds and identify slow pages

• Content tracking: identifying any unauthorized or missing changes on important pages

• Link validation: Scanning for broken or outdated links

Scheduled checks with automation tools such as Selenium scripts ensure that the teams identify the problem before it causes any damage. Workflows created with tools like n8n can send alerts to Slack, Teams, or email to make sure the right people are responding fast.

For example, an e-commerce platform can automate to simulate its checkout flow each hour. If a page slows down or a step fails, the system notifies support immediately. That protects both risks to sales and user trust.

#4 Form Filling and Submission

Form entry consumes valuable employee time in operations, HR and many other departments. Most of these activities are repetitive and can be automated to save time.

Common use cases include:

• Job applications: postings of candidate information to various job boards

• Surveys: entering data into a research or feedback survey

• Registrations: handle sign-ups and course enrolments

However, there are several challenges when automating these processes across the web. We need to handle authentication, sessions, CAPTCHA and to avoid many defences designed to block autonomous bots. Still you may need to consider human-in-the-loop to detect and manually override if any step fails. Forms often require specific input formats to be met or conditional requirements.

For example, a staffing agency can post profiles of applicants to multiple portals from a single source record. The workflow maps fields, submits the form, and records the result, reducing effort and errors.

Note: Not all workflows need developers or web automation. Simple form automations can be created with Low-code tools such as Zapier and Workato. These enable teams to get started with no code and in some cases may be faster to adopt.

Below is an example Zapier workflow for pushing new marketing leads into a sales CRM.

#5 Automated Reporting and Dashboards

Many teams spend hours each week logging into portals, exporting files, and formatting reports. Automation can handle the reporting cycle end-to-end, removing routine work.

Common use cases include:

• Portal access: logging in to systems that don’t provide APIs

• Report downloads: exporting CSV, Excel, or PDF files on a schedule

• Dashboard updates: combining data from different sources into a single view

• Email distribution: sending recurring reports automatically to stakeholders

For instance, if you need to combine sales, marketing data, and customer service data from different web applications, you can create browser automation to consolidate these data even in the absence of APIs or direct integrations.

One practical example: a finance team can schedule daily sales data to be collected, merged with marketing metrics, and sent to managers every morning. No one logs in, no one exports files, the numbers are delivered on time and in the right format.

#6 Social Media Automation

Modern businesses use multiple social accounts. However, managing each manually makes it difficult and repetitive in the long run. Yet, posts need to go out on time, engagement has to be tracked, and reports have to be pulled together across all the social profiles. Automation can take care of these repetitive steps so teams can focus on creating content and refining strategy.

Common uses include:

• Post scheduling: line up content in advance and publish it automatically

• Engagement tracking: capture likes, comments, and shares without manual checks

• Multi-account management: handle several brand or client accounts from one workflow

The challenge is feature coverage. Not every platform API exposes all features, which is where browser automation helps with logging in, posting directly, or pulling analytics from dashboards.

For example, take a marketing team managing three channels. Instead of logging in daily, they schedule a week's worth of posts and get automated reports on engagement each day. Less clicking, more time spent improving campaigns.

#7 Sales Intelligence

Researching cold prospects takes time. Sales teams usually take hours scanning company websites, LinkedIn profiles, and business directories. Automation can handle this by gathering the same information more quickly and with fewer errors.

Common use cases include:

• Customer research: extracting company size, industry, and contact information

• Competitor monitoring: identification of new products and alterations in the price on their competitor websites

• CRM enrichment: keeping the records up to date on a platform such as Salesforce, HubSpot, and other platforms.

Here, the main challenge is website variation. Each site displays information in its own way. Automated agentic workflows manage this by visually inspecting pages, finding the correct fields, and updating the information into sales systems.

The impact of these automations grows when the prospect data connects directly to outreach activities. For example, a workflow can pull LinkedIn updates, add them to CRM records, and automatically send a follow-up email.

As an example, a team focused on mid-size retailers can execute a daily workflow which collects company profiles, refreshes job titles, and directs new leads to their CRM. Then reps can start with fresh data and focus on conversations instead of searching for information.

#8 Legal Automation

Legal work often relies on repetitive form submissions and document filings. Automation reduces the manual load by completing these steps quickly and consistently.

Typical uses include:

• Court filings: uploading documents for mortgages, lawsuits, or appeals

• Permit applications: submitting zoning, construction, or business license requests

• Case research: pulling records from public databases or court systems

The challenge of a law clerk is precision. Deadlines are strict, and a missing field or incorrect upload can carry material consequences. Automated workflows manage this by filling forms, attaching the right files, and logging confirmations so nothing slips through.

For example, a law firm processing new mortgages can run an automated workflow that files documents across multiple court portals. Staff only step in when there’s an error, which saves hours of re-entry work and reduces the chance of missed deadlines.

Conclusion

From data extraction and testing to reporting, social media, sales research, and even legal work, the applications of browser automation keep expanding. The advantage is obvious: routine actions are processed in a similar fashion, and individuals have more time to dedicate to work that requires deep thinking and creativity.

To run these web automation at scale, you need platforms like Anchor Browser which support agentic browser automation, significantly reducing the effort with tooling that needs to handle authentication, bypassing Captcha and more. Together with AI, automation workflows will become smarter, faster, and maintainable than ever before.