Implementation
Not every workflow is a good candidate for AI agents. The best candidates share three characteristics: the work is currently done by humans who follow a consistent process, the inputs and outputs are well-defined, and the volume is high enough that automation creates meaningful time savings.
Here are five workflows that consistently meet those criteria — and that can be scoped, built, and deployed in a 30-day sprint.
What humans do today: An SDR or sales ops person reads every inbound inquiry, looks up the company in a CRM and third-party data sources (Clearbit, Apollo, LinkedIn), scores the lead based on ICP fit, and routes it to the appropriate AE with a brief or assigns it to a nurture sequence.
Why it's agent-ready: The process is consistent (same criteria applied to every lead), the inputs are well-defined (form submission or email), and the output is structured (a routing decision plus a qualification summary). High-volume inbound — 50+ leads per day — makes this one of the highest-ROI workflows to automate.
What the agent does: Reads the inbound inquiry, enriches the company data from a configured source, scores against your ICP criteria, writes a qualification summary, routes to the correct AE in your CRM, and triggers the appropriate sequence.
Integration requirements: Your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive), a data enrichment API, and your email or form capture system. Typically scoped as a Starter engagement.
What humans do today: A support rep reads every incoming ticket, determines the issue type and urgency, looks up the customer's account status and history, routes to the appropriate queue, and sends an initial acknowledgment — often with a templated response if it's a common issue.
Why it's agent-ready: Issue classification follows consistent patterns. Common issues (password reset, billing inquiry, feature question) have standard responses. The triage decision is rule-based even when humans make it intuitively.
What the agent does: Reads the incoming ticket, classifies issue type and urgency, looks up customer account data, assigns to the appropriate queue, and sends an initial response — either a resolution for known issues or an acknowledgment with expected response time for escalations.
Integration requirements: Your support platform (Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk), your CRM or customer database, and optionally your knowledge base. Typically scoped as a Standard engagement.
What humans do today: A sales rep receives an RFQ or opportunity close enough to quote. They pull pricing from a spreadsheet or ERP, check inventory or availability, apply any applicable discounts from a rate card, and assemble a proposal document — often in PowerPoint or a PDF template.
Why it's agent-ready: The logic is consistent even when it doesn't feel that way. Pricing rules, discount tiers, and proposal templates are finite. The variation in proposals comes from filling in known variables, not from creative decisions.
What the agent does: Reads the opportunity details, pulls pricing and availability from configured systems, applies discount rules, populates a proposal template, generates a PDF, and either sends it directly or presents it for a rep to review and send.
Integration requirements: Your CRM, your ERP or pricing system, and a document generation tool. The human-in-the-loop variant (agent drafts, human approves) is a common choice for higher-value deals. Typically a Standard engagement.
What humans do today: A legal coordinator or ops person receives a vendor or partner contract, reads it for key terms (payment terms, liability caps, termination clauses, data processing requirements), summarizes the key provisions, flags anything outside standard thresholds, and routes to the appropriate legal reviewer with a brief.
Why it's agent-ready: The review criteria are well-defined (which clauses matter, what thresholds trigger escalation). The output is structured (a summary and a routing decision). Document AI for contract parsing has matured significantly — accuracy on standard commercial contracts is high enough for triage-level work.
What the agent does: Reads the contract document, extracts key terms, compares against configured thresholds, generates a summary brief, flags non-standard terms, and routes to the appropriate reviewer with the brief attached.
Integration requirements: Your document storage (Google Drive, SharePoint, email), your contract management system if you have one, and your ticketing or task system for routing. Typically a Standard engagement. Note: this agent assists legal review, it doesn't replace it.
What humans do today: An AP or finance team member receives vendor invoices, matches them against purchase orders in the ERP, checks line items against the PO, identifies discrepancies (wrong pricing, missing PO reference, quantity mismatch), routes exceptions for human resolution, and approves matched invoices for payment.
Why it's agent-ready: Invoice matching is the definition of a rules-based process. The matching criteria (PO number, vendor ID, line item amounts, tolerances) are explicit. Discrepancies fall into a small number of exception categories. High-volume AP teams spend significant time on work that's entirely deterministic.
What the agent does: Reads incoming invoices (email or portal), extracts line items, queries the ERP for matching PO data, runs matching logic, approves matched invoices, and routes exceptions with a discrepancy summary to the appropriate resolver.
Integration requirements: Your ERP (SAP, NetSuite, QuickBooks Enterprise), your email or AP portal, and optionally your document storage. Typically a Standard or Complex engagement depending on ERP API availability.
Before you scope any workflow, apply the three-question test:
Workflows that pass all three questions are almost always scopeable into a 30-day sprint. The ones that fail question 2 — the "it depends" workflows — need more process definition before they're agent-ready.
If you have a workflow that meets the criteria above, book a 30-minute scoping call. We'll confirm whether it qualifies, identify the integration requirements, and tell you what tier it falls into.