A Buyer's Guide to AI Agents: Three Questions to Ask Before Automating
AlexKim · x · 2026-07-30
The author proposes a practical framework to help businesses determine whether they should turn a workflow into an AI agent. The core argument is that not all processes are worth automating, and decision-makers must answer three critical questions before building:
- Does it add up to real hours over a year? Focus on total annual hours saved rather than frequency. Saving 2 minutes a day is negligible, but an 8-hour month-end close is worth automating.
- Does it break when one specific person is out? The biggest hidden risks lie in processes that rely heavily on a single individual. Fixing these provides immediate, obvious value.
- Would two people describe the rules the same way? If the rules vary by person, it’s not a standardized workflow, and automating it will only lock in the confusion.
The author concludes that a process needs three "yeses" to be worth automating. Sometimes, the best move is simply deleting the process entirely—such as a weekly report nobody reads—rather than buying an agent.
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