Skan AI alternatives in 2026: who to look at instead, and when to stay
Skan AI alternatives by situation, read from public pages: when Skan is the right call, when to look elsewhere, what each tool does worse, and demo questions.
TL;DR
Stay with Skan AI if you are regulated and your people work on mainframe, legacy desktop or virtual desktop screens, which Skan’s own pages name. Look elsewhere for a trial you can start without sales (Mimica, Microsoft), a second bid on the same hard case (Automation Anywhere), automation on a platform you own (UiPath, Celonis), or a map beyond the screen (Nolli).
On this page
- Skan AI price
- Quote only
- Alternatives
- 7, sorted by your situation
- Checked
- October 16, 2026, from public pages
Quick picks
- StaySkan AIYou are regulated and your people work on mainframe, legacy desktop or virtual desktop screens. Get the capture method and the field list in writing.
- Second bidAutomation Anywhere Process DiscoveryThe only other vendor we read that names both mainframes and VDI, with a gateway that redacts before the cloud. No price on its page.
- Lighter startMimica or Microsoft Power AutomateMimica offers a free 14-day proof of concept. Microsoft describes a 90-day trial license that includes task mining.
- Beyond the screenNolliAdds email, calendar and AI agent logs to what happens on screen. No mainframe or VDI claim, and no public price. We make it.
Nolli makes one of the products on this page. We list it like the others, with its limits. We compare from each vendor’s public pages and name our sources below. We did not run hands-on tests.
Key takeaways
- Of the vendors we read, only Skan AI and Automation Anywhere name both mainframe and virtual desktop capture, so compare those two for that case.
- Skan AI is quote only and its pages show no trial. Mimica says it offers a free 14-day proof of concept and Microsoft describes a 90-day trial.
- Whoever you pick, get the list of captured fields in writing and read ten raw captures before you read any dashboard.
Short version. Skan AI earns its place when you are regulated and your people work on mainframe screens, legacy desktops or virtual desktops. Its own pages name all three. If that is not you, find your situation below and test the tool named there.
Skan is the closest competitor to Nolli, and we make Nolli, so read our entry with that in mind. We ran none of these products. We read each vendor’s public pages as raw text on October 16, 2026, and some copies may be a few days old. For the wider ranking, see best task mining software in 2026. For the Celonis side of this question, see Celonis Task Mining alternatives.
What Skan says, and what we could check
Skan’s pricing page lists three products: Blueprint (where AI should go), Intelligence (how work is done) and Agents (agents built from observed work). Skan says they share one model, the Context Graph of Work. That is Skan’s name for a model of how work runs. Judge what the model contains, not the name.
| Topic | Skan says | What we could and could not check |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | Zero-integration capture across mainframe, legacy desktop, VDI, web and office tools (home page). | An undated Skan privacy whitepaper says an agent on each employee’s computer reads the screen with computer vision and builds a clickstream. No page we read says what is stored per click. |
| Where data stays | Raw screens and records never leave your perimeter (home page). | The whitepaper and two blog posts describe a gateway server inside your network, on-premises or in a private cloud, that masks data. Anonymized metadata goes to the Skan cloud, stored in Microsoft Azure per the whitepaper. |
| Certifications | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 (security page). | A Skan blog post says the reports are available under NDA. We saw none of them. |
| Price | “Get your customized Skan AI quote” (pricing page). | Quote only. We found no list price, and no free trial or proof of concept. |
| Company | A $63 million Series C announced August 12, 2026, co-led by Cathay Innovation and Dell Technologies Capital (Skan’s press release). | VentureBeat put total funding at roughly $120 million. The release says Blueprint and Agents became generally available the same day. |
Stay with Skan if
Five conditions. These are Skan’s claims, so make the demo test each one.
- You work in banking, insurance or healthcare, and the security review is the hard part. Skan says it serves regulated industries, and its pages describe pixel-level masking at the endpoint, a gateway inside your network and pseudonymized employee IDs.
- Your people work on mainframe screens, legacy desktops or virtual desktops. Skan says its capture reaches all three.
- Your security team wants certifications to read. Skan lists three and says the reports are under NDA.
- You expect a multi-year rollout. A $63 million round on August 12, 2026 does not guarantee anything, but it is a fact worth having when you pick a vendor for years.
- You want one vendor from the map to the agents.
“Zero integration” covers the apps it watches
Skan’s own pages also describe an agent on every machine and a gateway server inside your network. A 2024 Skan post on its gateway says the customer provisions the hardware and Skan supplies a Docker image.
Do this todayAsk who installs and runs the gateway, on whose hardware, and how many weeks it took at the last customer your size.
Get the field list
No page we read says what is stored per click. The security page puts the heading “What Skan AI never captures” above a list of things Skan plainly observes, such as application usage and workflow sequences. That looks like a layout slip. Its FAQ says observation tools should avoid keystrokes, while its whitepaper describes a clickstream built by computer vision.
Do this todayAsk for the written list of captured fields, with typed text and screenshots marked yes or no.
Ask what the employee can do
We found nothing on employees pausing the recording on the Skan pages we read. Skan says it pseudonymizes employee IDs and analyzes processes, not people. It says its reference deployments gave employees notice and, where required, involved employee representatives.
Do this todayAsk what an employee sees on screen, whether they can pause, and who sends the notice.
Ask who runs the newest parts
Skan’s release says Blueprint and Agents became generally available on August 12, 2026. Intelligence was already on sale.
Do this todayAsk for two references that run Agents in production, and for the sample behind any ROI figure you are shown.
You are in the same situation and want a second bid
Regulated, with legacy desktops or virtual desktops, and you want a price to hold against Skan’s. Of the vendors we read, one other names both mainframes and VDI. UiPath’s docs say capturing virtual environments is not fully supported (see its entry below), so it is not a like-for-like swap.
Automation Anywhere Process Discovery
Situation: regulated or legacy-desktop work, and you want to price Skan against another bid
Says it uses computer vision to capture process details from mainframes, VDI, Windows and web apps. It says a Privacy Enhanced Gateway redacts personal data before anything goes to the cloud, and that only information you approve leaves your network. The design idea matches Skan’s.
Strengths
- Matches Skan on stated reach: the page names mainframes and VDI.
- Says it is compliant with GDPR and CCPA and names ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 on the page.
Limits
- Does worse than Skan on what we can see: the page gives no price, no trial, and nothing on employee pausing or notice.
- The page does not say whether you can buy Process Discovery without the rest of Automation Anywhere’s platform. Its customer results (hours freed, percent faster) have no method, so we left them out.
Pricing Not published. The page offers a demo.Vendor page
No public price, or you want a lighter start
Skan is quote only and its pages show no trial. Two vendors say on their own pages that you can try before you talk to sales. A third lets an admin start with very little collected.
Mimica
Situation: a large team with no platform, and you want a free proof of concept first
Records clicks, keystrokes and actions across desktop applications, maps the processes, and builds agents. Its FAQ says a team gets an emailed invitation, downloads the recorder, and can see insights after as little as one week.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on a low-risk start: its FAQ offers a free 14-day proof of concept.
- Employees start, pause or stop recordings. You can exclude apps or websites before recording begins. It says it detects and anonymizes personally identifiable information, and it names ISO 27001 and GDPR.
Limits
- Does worse on hard desktops: the page says “all desktop applications” and never names mainframe or virtual desktops.
- We found no price. It says it excels with large enterprises, so a small team may sit below its range. Its savings figures and “results in just 2 weeks” give no method, so we left them out.
Pricing Not published. A free 14-day proof of concept, per its FAQ.Vendor page
Microsoft Power Automate (task mining)
Situation: a Microsoft shop with a first project of a few recorded processes
Task mining is built around recordings that people make of a process and upload for analysis. It sits in Power Automate Premium, a per-user license that includes process and task mining with 50 MB of data stored.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on trying before buying: Microsoft Learn describes a 90-day trial license that includes task mining.
- An “Automate activities” button creates a draft Power Automate flow from recorded steps, per Microsoft’s tutorial.
Limits
- Does worse on privacy by default: Microsoft’s docs tell you to delete screenshots and edit sensitive text in a recording before you analyze it.
- People choose what to record, so you see the processes someone picked. Capacity is 50 MB per user license, up to 100 GB per tenant. Microsoft’s pricing page lists Premium at $15.00 per user per month, paid yearly, with process and task mining at 50 MB of data stored (read in a browser on October 16, 2026).
Pricing Published: Power Automate Premium is $15.00 per user per month, paid yearly, per Microsoft’s pricing page. Microsoft notes the final price shows at checkout.Vendor page
KYP.ai
Situation: many apps, and you want to set the detail level yourself or host the server
Says it combines process mining and task mining, with no complex ERP integrations. Its KYP Connect App can collect data from any application on the user’s machine.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on stated defaults: the app collects basic data about running applications and no personal data until an admin raises the detail level.
- Applications or views can be marked private, and nothing is collected from them. Its docs list self-hosted server installation.
Limits
- Does worse on clarity: the docs we read do not say whether the app takes screenshots or keystrokes, or how anonymization works. Its full knowledge base needs an account.
- Its docs say data may be processed in the United States and by third parties when accessed from outside the agreed locations.
Pricing Not published on the pages we read. We found no trial.Vendor page
You want automation on a platform you already run
Skan’s home page says its agents run through Skan’s Agentic Operating Procedures. So the automation step lives in Skan, not on the platform you may already own. If you run UiPath or Celonis, test what their recorders give you first.
UiPath Task Mining
Situation: you plan to automate on UiPath and want discovery and automation on one platform
One half of UiPath Process Intelligence. A recorder on each user’s machine captures screenshots, keyboard actions and clicks for the applications an admin enables, and UiPath merges the recordings into traces of the process.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on the route into a platform you may own: findings convert into automated workflows on UiPath. UiPath says you can use process intelligence without committing to its automation.
- Publishes its privacy rules in public docs. Users can pause (up to 1 hour per pause, with no limit on pauses) and see the list of applications recorded. PII is masked automatically, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Limits
- Does worse on hard desktops: the recorder needs Windows, VDI must be persistent, and the docs say capturing virtual environments is not fully supported and a virtual machine is captured as screenshots with no metadata.
- The customer must notify employees, and UiPath says it cannot take their consent. It forbids processing credit card information, and health information unless you sign a BAA. It also uses recorded data to check that its machine learning works.
Pricing Not published for Task Mining. The UiPath pricing page lists Standard and Enterprise plans as contact sales (read October 14).Vendor page
Celonis Task Mining
Situation: you already run Celonis process mining and want desktop work beside your event-log data
Per Celonis’s docs, a premium add-on inside the Celonis Platform. A client on each user’s machine records interactions with applications and websites, and the results sit next to your process mining data.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on public detail about controls: a consent screen, pause rights, allow and deny lists, and redaction at capture, all per Celonis’s docs.
- Joins desktop work to the event logs of your systems of record. A 2023 Celonis release note mentions an on-premises gateway option.
Limits
- Does worse on scope and price: the docs call it a premium product with an additional licensing fee, give no price, and the data lives in the Celonis Platform.
- It records typed text and optional screenshots. Celonis tells you to talk to legal, and to worker councils or trade unions, before you switch it on. Its docs have asked for a Celonis login in the past.
Pricing Not published. Celonis’s documentation says it carries an additional licensing fee.Vendor page
Skan has a comparison page against Celonis that quotes visibility percentages and savings in dollars. None of it comes with a method or a sample, so we repeat none of it.
You want a map beyond the screen
Skan’s Blueprint also ranks where AI should go, by value, complexity and risk, per its pricing page. So the difference is what feeds the map. Skan feeds it from observed screens, plus documents and expert input it says you provide. Nolli adds email, calendar and AI agent logs. This is the AI discovery question from our guide.
Nolli
Made by NolliSituation: you want to find where AI belongs across teams, from screen, email and AI agent logs
Nolli is AI discovery, not a task mining suite. It learns how your company works from people’s work on company devices, from the email and calendar your company connects, and from the logs of the AI agents people already use. Then it ranks where AI belongs and what each change is worth. We make it, so weigh this entry accordingly.
Strengths
- Does better than Skan on the sources it names: email, calendar and AI agent logs sit beside the screen, so the map shows who works with whom and what people already hand to AI.
- Sorts each step into delete, plain code, agent or human, prices each opportunity per task, runs agents in shadow mode against what your people did, and shares skills, SOPs and agents.
- Your company sets what it may learn from. Passwords, password managers, and login, checkout and billing pages stay out, and your admin can see, correct, export or delete what it learned.
Limits
- Does worse on hard desktops: our pages do not claim mainframe or virtual desktop capture, so assume none until we show you.
- It is not an ERP event-log process mining suite. For case counts and timestamps from your systems, use process mining.
- No public price, no certification listed on our trust page, and less technical detail than Skan publishes. People cannot pause it one by one: your company’s policy sets what it learns from.
Pricing No public price. Request a demo.Vendor page
Side by side
The grid shows what each page says. The quadrant shows how much of the work each tool says it sees, and how much you can learn before you talk to sales.
| Skan AI | Automation Anywhere | UiPath | Celonis | Mimica | Microsoft | KYP.ai | Nolli | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Names mainframe or virtual desktop capture | fully | fully | partly | none | none | none | none | none |
| Masks personal data automatically | fully | fully | fully | fully | fully | none | none | partly |
| Gateway or self-hosted option inside your network | fully | fully | none | partly | none | none | partly | none |
| Person can pause the recording | none | none | fully | fully | fully | none | none | none |
| Free trial or proof of concept stated | none | none | none | none | fully | fully | none | none |
| Price on a public page | none | none | none | none | none | fully | none | none |
| Route from findings to agents or automation | fully | partly | fully | fully | fully | fully | partly | fully |
| Reads system event logs | partly | none | fully | fully | none | fully | partly | none |
| Learns from email, calendar or AI agent logs | none | none | none | none | none | none | none | fully |
none partly fully · From each vendor’s public pages: Skan, Automation Anywhere, Mimica, UiPath’s privacy and VDI docs and Microsoft’s pricing and overview read October 16, 2026; the rest from the October 14 reading. Full: the page says it plainly. Half: it says part of it. UiPath’s VDI cell is half because its docs list limits. Nolli’s masking cell is half because it removes keys, card and ID numbers before any AI model sees the work. Skan’s event-log cell is half because its Celonis comparison page says it combines task and process mining. Empty: we found nothing, which does not prove the feature is missing. Celonis details come from docs that may ask for a login.
Our reading of the public pages we read, not a measurement. Left to right: from one platform or recordings people choose to make, to what the vendor says about mainframe, virtual desktop, web, office, email or agent work. Bottom to top: from quote-only with thin public detail, to a stated trial or price and public docs. Skan sits mid-height because it publishes a lot of security detail and no price. The order of the dots matters more than the exact spot. Nolli is ours, and we placed it by the same rule as the rest.
Before you switch, or sign
- 01Name the hard caseMainframe, VDI, or neither
- 02Get the priceIn writing, with what it covers
- 03Get the field listTyped text and screenshots, yes or no
- 04Ask for the reportsThe certificate itself, not the badge
- 05Run a second bidSame process, same people, same notice
- 06Read ten raw capturesBefore any dashboard
- 07Sign or stopOne owner
Next process
Our checklist, not a vendor’s. No vendor above publishes a bake-off length, so the two-week test is our suggestion.
Where Nolli fits
Where Nolli fits, and where it does not
Nolli is AI discovery. It learns how your company works from people’s work on company devices, from the email and calendar you connect, and from the logs of the AI agents your people use, then shows where AI belongs and what it is worth. Your IT team installs it. Your company decides what it may learn from. Nolli is not an ERP event-log process mining suite, it makes no mainframe or virtual desktop claim, and it has no public price. If you are regulated and your hard case is a mainframe, start with Skan AI or Automation Anywhere. If your question is where AI belongs across teams, including work that happens in email and in AI agents, add Nolli. Request a demo to see it on your own work.
Request a demoQuestions people ask
What are the best alternatives to Skan AI?
It depends on your situation. Automation Anywhere Process Discovery is the closest match for mainframe and virtual desktop work. Mimica and Microsoft Power Automate say they offer a trial. UiPath and Celonis fit teams that already run them. Nolli is for finding where AI belongs from screen, email and AI agent logs.
Does Skan AI publish a price?
No. Its pricing page says “Get your customized Skan AI quote” and describes three products, Blueprint, Intelligence and Agents, with no figures. We found no free trial or proof of concept on the pages we read.
When should I stay with Skan AI?
Stay if you are in a regulated industry, your people work on mainframe, legacy desktop or virtual desktop screens, and your security team wants certifications to read. Test Skan’s claims in a demo and get the capture method and the list of captured fields in writing.
Does Skan AI work on mainframes and virtual desktops?
Skan says it does: its home page names mainframe, legacy desktop and VDI. We could not test that. By contrast, UiPath’s docs say capturing virtual environments is not fully supported.
Is Skan AI certified?
Skan’s security page lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001, and a Skan post says the reports are available under NDA. We saw no report, so ask for it.
Sources
- “Context Graph of Work and Agentic AI Platform.” Skan AI, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Get your customized Skan AI quote.” Skan AI, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Enterprise-grade security. Zero compromise on control.” Skan AI, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “The foundation your agentic transformation relies on.” Skan AI, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Process Intelligence: Privacy First (whitepaper).” Skan AI, undated; accessed October 16, 2026.
- Manish Garg. “How Skan AI Protects Privacy by Design.” Skan AI, August 24, 2026.
- “Enterprise Desktop Workflow Observability: On-Prem Guide.” Skan AI, July 21, 2026.
- “Skan PRISM: Privacy and Information Security at the Forefront.” Skan AI, January 18, 2024.
- “The #1 Celonis Alternative for Process Intelligence.” Skan AI, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Skan AI Raises $63 Million to Give Enterprise AI the Context It’s Missing.” Skan AI, via PR Newswire, August 12, 2026.
- Michael Nuñez. “Skan AI raises $63 million betting that watching how employees actually work is the missing layer of enterprise AI.” VentureBeat, August 12, 2026.
- “Process Discovery: Find Hidden Work & Automate for Impact.” Automation Anywhere, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Task Mining.” UiPath, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Protection of personal data and privacy of the users.” UiPath Documentation, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Hardware and software requirements for the recorder client.” UiPath Documentation, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “UiPath pricing.” UiPath, accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Task Mining.” Celonis Product Documentation, accessed October 16, 2026; cached copy, may open only with a Celonis login.
- “Task Mining data privacy and security.” Celonis Product Documentation, accessed October 14, 2026; opens only with a Celonis login.
- “Task Mining Desktop Application version 2.12.0.” Celonis Community, August 1, 2023.
- “What is Task Mining?” Celonis, accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Mimica: AI that records, maps and automates how teams work.” Mimica, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Power Automate pricing.” Microsoft, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Overview of process mining and task mining in Power Automate.” Microsoft Learn, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Get started with the task mining capability.” Microsoft Learn, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Protect your data.” Microsoft Learn, accessed October 14, 2026.
- “What is KYP.ai?” KYP.ai Documentation, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “FAQ Compliance & Security.” KYP.ai Documentation, accessed October 14, 2026.
- “Discover: map how work really happens across your company.” Nolli, accessed October 16, 2026.
- “Trust and governance.” Nolli, accessed October 16, 2026.
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