# How to Automate Anything with Browser Automation (axiom.ai) > Browser automation lets you automate anything you do on a screen by building a bot that clicks, types and navigates like a person. It is useful when a tool has no API or integration for Zapier or Make. The trade offs are that bots are limited to the browser and can break when a website changes its layout. Source: https://fluxomate.com/blog/how-to-automate-anything.html Published by Fluxomate (https://fluxomate.com/), 2024-08-16. Section: Automation templates. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y4pcc8WDAM ## Key takeaways - There are three ways to automate: no code tools such as Zapier or Make, coding, and browser automation. - Browser bots can automate anything web based, because they work with the screen like a human would. - Their main limits are that they stay inside the browser and break when a site's interface changes. - axiom.ai is a Chrome extension with no database of its own, so a Google Sheet acts as the back end. - A simple bot is a chain of steps: read the sheet, go to a page, click, type, click, then delete the row. - A bot can send a webhook to Zapier or Make, so it can start a back end automation. ## What are the three ways to set up an automation? There are three main architectures for automation. The first is no code tools such as Zapier and Make. We use these most of the time, because they have a huge number of integrations. The second is code, where you write a script, host it and launch it. The third is browser automation. Some things cannot be done in the first approach, either because an app has no suitable API or because its API is not public. In that case you need another route. Code is one, but if you have no coding experience it gets complicated and is hard to maintain. For a beginner, a browser bot is much easier to build. ## What is a browser bot? Browser automation means building a robot that uses your browser. It moves the mouse, clicks, types and navigates between pages, doing the repetitive work for you to save time and effort. Because it works with the screen as a person does, you can automate anything that happens on a web page. ## What are the pros and cons of browser bots? In an ideal world you would use Zapier or Make, because they package everything together and make life easier. Browser bots are the fallback. The pros: - You can automate anything web based. - You can replicate yourself on tasks that Zapier cannot automate. - They are an easy way out. The interface is similar to no code tools, so it is simpler than building a coded solution. ## What are the downsides of browser bots? There are two main drawbacks: - They are limited to the browser. They can only replicate what happens on your screen, not what happens on the back end. You can get around this by sending a webhook from the bot to Zapier or Make, which continues the automation on the back end. - They can break. Websites and software change their interface often. When they do, your bot may stop working and you will have to set it up again. With one bot this is fine, but with five, ten or fifteen running at once, constant fixes become a real problem. ## When should you use one? We try to stay away from browser bots, unless there is no other option, because our aim is for clients to maintain their systems themselves, and a bot that breaks when a site changes is hard to maintain. For a beginner who wants to automate one major thing that no integration covers, they can be a good solution. ## How do you set up axiom.ai? axiom.ai is a browser automation tool and one of the most popular. It is a Chrome extension, so you install it from the website, pin it to the toolbar and sign up. There is a free trial that gives a limited amount of run time, which is enough to test and build examples. A paid plan is needed if you want to schedule bots to run at set times. The most important set up step is to connect your Google account. axiom.ai does not store any data and has no database, so it relies on a Google Sheet as the back end for what you build. The dashboard shows your bots, run reports and scheduled runs. ## How do you build a bot that posts to X from a Google Sheet? This example posts a tweet automatically. In a Google Sheet, put the headline row in row one and your post text in the cell below. Then create a new automation in axiom.ai with these steps: 1. Read data from Google Sheets. Choose the spreadsheet and sheet, and set the first cell to the cell that holds your post text, not the header cell. 2. Navigate to the compose page of X. Use the compose URL directly, so the bot does not need to click through the site. 3. Click the element for the text box. Use the select tool to point at it on the page. 4. Enter text. Insert the data from the Google Sheet. You can add a short delay so it looks less like a bot. 5. Click the element for the post button. 6. Delete the row from the Google Sheet, so you can see that the bot ran. ## What else can browser bots do? When you run a bot you can watch it work in a new tab, which makes it easy to see where it fails. The same structure scales. The post can be longer or include images. You could also repurpose newsletters into posts, or use ChatGPT inside the bot, so the sheet holds a prompt and the bot posts the generated text. The axiom.ai website has many templates and videos you can copy into your account, including bots for adding prospects to lists, posting on social platforms, collecting leads and sending messages. Be careful with outreach bots, because platforms may spot fast, repetitive activity and restrict the account. Focus on the structure rather than the specific tool, because tools change but the framework of trigger, steps and data source stays the same. ## Questions people ask ### What is browser automation? Browser automation is a bot that uses your browser the way a person would. It can navigate pages, click, type and move the mouse, so it can automate anything that happens on a web page. ### When should I use a browser bot instead of Zapier or Make? Use one when the app you need has no API, no public API or no integration in your no code tool. For most other tasks, Zapier or Make is easier to maintain. ### Why do browser bots break? They depend on how a website looks. When a site or app changes its interface, the bot may no longer find the buttons it was built to click, and you have to rebuild or update it. ### Does axiom.ai store my data? No. It has no database, so you connect a Google Sheet and use it as the back end for the data your bot reads and writes. Tools used: axiom.ai, Google Sheets, Google Chrome, X, Zapier, Make.com, ChatGPT Free templates for this guide: https://fluxomate.com/resources.html?r=how-to-automate-anything