Decision automation means that software — not people — makes decisions. The concept of decision auto­mation is both deceptively simple and intriguingly complex. On the surface, the idea is to write a computer program that uses data, rules, and criteria to make decisions. Decision automation is programmed decision making. A decision automation system replaces and eliminates the need for a human decision maker in a specific decision situation. Through such a system, inputs and events trigger business rules and programmed instructions and then the program “makes” a choice and initiates action. The greatly expanded and evolving computing infrastructure makes it increasingly cost-effective to apply decision automation in situations that previously had been prohibitively costly. Increasingly, decision automation deploys as a distributed, cloud-based application that uses integrated networks and sensors to make decisions in a specific domain.