The spell of AI is strong today. It is difficult to escape. Most do not have a choice. I am not here to do the work for folks to compare the latest AI moose diarrhea with reality, but I am here to remind you that you do not need agents to automate your business. I am here to remind you that it is not the most cost effective or efficient way to automate your business. I am here to remind you that the current state of generative AI is about applying a predictive approach to automation when you are most likely just needing a deterministic approach to mundane business tasks you need accomplished. Enterprise business automation does not require agents to do the work.
My favorite example of this with artificial intelligence is that generative AI uses trigonometry to do simple math. In the same way, don’t need trigonometry to do the majority of business tasks you need to automate the enterprise. It is overkill. It is costly. It is inefficient. Sure, there are some aspects of enterprise operations in some industries that make sense to use a predictive approach, but the majority of business resources can be defined as simple HTTP APIs, which can then be stitched together into logical workflows. These automations can then be triggered by humans, events, or scheduled with CRON jobs. This isn’t anything advanced, but can often be tedious to do well. The promise that someone else’s AI will help you find a shortcut for this work is just the latest vendor hustle. Their motivations aren’t difficult to see. I get you are overwhelmed with the work, but read the room.
Buying into the current wave of digital agents powered by AI is the equivalent of outsourcing your enterprise IT capacity offshore in 2005. I know it is exciting to be part of this moment. Everyone is talking about it around you. But you will have way more control over your automation and be able to achieve repeatable outcomes for a lot less money, while continuing to refine and invest in your (human) team’s capacity to execute what your business needs on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis. This post is just a reminder for the people I am working with that they are on the right track and they have the right signal within the noise right now. The enterprises I see going all in on artificial intelligence and agents are the same ones I watched outsourced their internal capacity, and long ago took their finger off the pulse of their business as well as the markets they operate within—-making the easy button shortcut nature of artificial intelligence seem so very appealing.
