What to Automate First (and Why)

These are ideal candidates for your initial team AI automation projects, offering quick wins and clear ROI.

1. Information Retrieval and FAQ Answering

• Why Automate: Employees spend countless hours searching for information or answering the same questions repeatedly. This is a classic example of what to automate first.

• AI Solution: An AI agent integrated with your internal knowledge base or external FAQs can provide instant, accurate answers.

• Benefit: Saves time for both information seekers and givers, reduces communication noise, and ensures consistent information.

• Example: An HR bot answering questions about company policies, a customer support bot handling basic product queries, or a sales enablement bot providing quick access to product specs.

2. Data Entry and Basic Data Extraction

• Why Automate: Highly repetitive, prone to human error, and completely non-value-add.

• AI Solution: AI agents can extract specific data points from documents (e.g., invoices, forms, emails) and input them into your CRM, ERP, or spreadsheets.

• Benefit: Improves accuracy, frees up human time for analysis, and accelerates data processing.

• Example: AI extracting contact details from lead forms, updating customer records, or parsing information from supplier invoices.

3. Content Summarization and Repurposing (First Drafts)

• Why Automate: Creating summaries of long documents or repurposing content for different platforms is often tedious.

• AI Solution: An AI agent can condense lengthy reports, generate concise meeting minutes, or draft social media posts and email snippets from a blog article.

• Benefit: Saves significant time for marketers and communication teams, ensures consistent messaging, and boosts content output.

• Example: AI summarizing a client call transcript, AI drafting social media captions from a press release, or AI generating blog post outlines. This is a great example of what to automate first.

4. Basic Lead Qualification and Scoring

• Why Automate: Manually sifting through leads to identify potential fits is time-consuming and often inconsistent.

• AI Solution: An AI agent can analyze incoming leads, compare them against your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and score them based on predefined criteria before handing them off to a human sales representative.

• Benefit: Ensures sales teams focus on high-quality leads, improves conversion rates, and optimizes sales efforts.

5. Routine Reminders and Notifications

• Why Automate: Manual follow-ups for deadlines, approvals, or outstanding tasks can be easily missed.

• AI Solution: An AI agent integrated with your project management or communication tools can send automated, personalized reminders.

• Benefit: Improves task completion rates, reduces bottlenecks, and maintains workflow momentum.

What Not to Automate (and Why)

While AI is powerful, certain tasks are best left to human judgment, at least for now. This knowledge of what not to automate is as crucial as knowing what to automate first.

1. Tasks Requiring High Empathy or Emotional Intelligence

• Why Not Automate: AI currently lacks genuine empathy, a nuanced understanding of human emotions, and the ability to build deep trust.

• AI Solution: Use AI to assist with information retrieval or preliminary triage, but hand off to a human for sensitive interactions.

• Example: Handling customer complaints that involve complex emotions, delivering difficult news to an employee, or conducting performance reviews.

2. Complex Strategic Decision-Making

• Why Not Automate: AI can provide data and insights, but strategic decisions often involve subjective judgment, ethical considerations, and an understanding of long-term vision that AI cannot fully grasp.

• AI Solution: Use AI for data analysis, trend identification, and scenario planning, but let human leaders make the final strategic calls.

• Example: Setting long-term company vision, making major investment decisions, or leading complex negotiations.

3. Highly Creative or Visionary Tasks

• Why Not Automate: While AI can generate ideas and first drafts, true innovation, artistic vision, and breakthrough creativity still largely reside with humans.

• AI Solution: Use AI as a brainstorming partner or a tool for generating variations, but human creatives should retain ownership of the core creative direction.

• Example: Developing a new brand identity, crafting a compelling narrative for a major campaign, or designing a radically new product.

4. Ethical or Legal High-Stakes Decisions (Without Human Oversight)

• Why Not Automate: AI can assist with legal research or compliance checks, but the ultimate responsibility and interpretation of complex legal or ethical dilemmas require human expertise.

• AI Solution: Use AI to gather information and provide initial analysis, but always involve legal and ethical experts for review and final decision-making.

• Example: Final approval of legal contracts, making ethical judgments in complex HR cases, or determining compliance in ambiguous situations.

By thoughtfully deciding what to automate first (and what not to), teams can unlock the immense potential of AI while mitigating risks. This strategic approach ensures AI becomes a valuable asset that enhances human capabilities, rather than a source of frustration or misplaced trust.

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