From the small business side of this: most SMBs never got to "traditional RPA" in the first place. The jump straight to AI agents is actually an easier sell because it doesn't require IT infrastructure — you can spin up a workflow with an AI + a VA and get 80% of the value without the implementation overhead.
What we're seeing is less "RPA vs AI" and more "finally automating things that were always done manually." The combination approach you mentioned makes sense at enterprise scale, but for smaller orgs it's often AI-first from day one.
The real unlock is when AI handles the decision layer and humans (or RPA) handle the execution of structured tasks. That's where the ROI compounds fast.