When something is automated, computers and machines do the job, not people. A factory can be automated: robots put the pieces together, and a computer watches the line. A phone line can be automated too — you press 1, press 2, and never speak to a person. Though actually, people stretch it. We say automated messages, automated lights, automated check-in, even when the machine is quite simple and no “robot army” is involved. The word feels a little technical: you hear it at work, in the news, and in ads for software. It is the adjective, and also the -ed form of the verb automate: the warehouse is automated; they automated the warehouse last year. Automatic is the cousin you already know — an automatic door opens by itself — but automated usually points to a whole job or system taken over by machines, not one small trick.