AI agents explained
What an AI agent could do in your business
What an agent actually is
01
Something arrives
An email, a form, a message or a document lands where your team would normally pick it up.
02
It understands it
It works out what this is, who it's from and what's being asked, the way a person reading it would.
03
It checks your rules
It looks at your own information and the rules you've set: what it may handle, what it must pass on, and to whom.
04
It acts in your tools
It does the routine part, such as replying, booking, entering details or sending a reminder, in the systems you already use.
05
A person checks what matters
Anything unusual, sensitive or outside the limits you set goes to a person, with the details ready.
Agent, chatbot or automation?
Automation
Follows fixed steps set up in advance. Reliable when every case looks the same, stuck when one doesn't.
Chatbot
Answers questions in a chat window. It can talk, but on its own it usually can't do anything in your systems.
AI agent
Reads what comes in, works out which of your rules apply, and takes actions in your tools within limits you set, handing the rest to a person.
Jobs an agent can do
Customer inquiry agent
Answers the questions customers ask every day, gathers the details you need, and passes the real leads to you.
- Takes in:
- Website forms, emails and WhatsApp messages from customers and prospects.
- Hands back:
- Leads with the details already filled in, and anything unusual, upset or high-value flagged for a person.
Booking and scheduling agent
Books, moves and confirms appointments around your real calendar, sends reminders and follows up when someone doesn't show.
- Takes in:
- Booking requests, changes and cancellations from your website, email and messages, plus your calendars and booking rules.
- Hands back:
- An up-to-date calendar, reminders sent, and a short list of the requests that need a person.
Document intake agent
Reads the documents that pile up, pulls out the details and enters them into your systems, flagging anything that doesn't add up.
- Takes in:
- Invoices, delivery notes, forms and permits, as scans, phone photos, PDFs or email attachments.
- Hands back:
- Clean entries in your systems, plus a short list of documents it's unsure about or that don't match your records.
Quote and estimate agent
Turns a customer's request into a draft quote from your own price list and rules, asks for whatever's missing, and waits for your approval.
- Takes in:
- Quote requests from your website, email or chat, plus your price list, your rules and past quotes.
- Hands back:
- A draft quote with the working shown, ready for you to approve, edit or send back.
Follow-up and chasing agent
Sends polite reminders about unpaid invoices, missing documents and quiet leads on your schedule, and stops as soon as someone replies.
- Takes in:
- Your lists of unpaid invoices, missing documents and open leads, plus the replies that come back.
- Hands back:
- An up-to-date picture of who has paid, who has promised and who has gone quiet, with disputes and hardship passed to a person.
Operations reporting agent
Reads the figures from your tools every morning, writes a short plain-English summary and flags anything unusual for a person to look at.
- Takes in:
- Read-only figures from your tools: job, property or practice systems, bookings, deliveries and accounts.
- Hands back:
- A short morning summary by email or team chat, with the unusual items first and each one linked to its source.
You stay in charge
- You can choose to approve its work before anything goes out, every time or only for the cases you pick.
- You can set limits on what it does on its own, such as which questions it answers or which documents it enters.
- You can read a log of everything it has read, decided and done.
- You can have it hand over to a person whenever something is unusual, sensitive or someone is upset.
Common questions
Do I need to be technical to use an AI agent?
No. You describe the job the way you'd explain it to a new hire: what comes in, what a good result looks like and when to ask. We handle the build, and your team works with the agent through the tools they already use.
Will an agent replace people on the team?
It's built to take the repetitive part of a job, like reading, typing and chasing, so your team can spend their time on the parts that need judgment. You choose which decisions stay with people.
What if the agent makes a mistake?
You decide how much it does on its own. You can start with a person approving its work, then widen its limits as you see how it performs. You can also have it log everything it does, so a mistake can be found and put right.
What does it cost?
It depends on the job and the tools involved. The AI agents service page explains how we build agents and what they cost.
Where should we start?
With one job that takes up time and follows a pattern, like answering inquiries or chasing invoices. Book a free 15-minute call and we'll talk through which job makes sense for your business.