Any task or activity will always be performed by an actor. An actor, sometimes be referred to as an activity worker, can be any kind of entity that can perform the task at hand. Actors can be represented as software components or a person that needs to complete a manual process to perform the task. When performing a task manually, the activity worker software can be used to receive the task details and perform the action that completes the task.

In the ten-step example, any task, such as the email or SMS notifications, payment processing, and account updates, will be performed by the software actors, whereas tasks such as order fulfillment, shipping, and so on will be performed by a person.