Use AI for judgment on messy, unstructured inputs; use plain rules for deterministic steps; keep humans on high-stakes calls. Matching the tool to the task is most of the win.
The fastest way to waste money on automation is to reach for a language model on every step. AI is extraordinary at reading messy, unstructured input and making a judgment call. It is a poor and expensive choice for work a simple rule already handles perfectly.
Our test is blunt: if a step has a deterministic right answer that a spreadsheet formula or an if-this-then-that rule could produce, don’t spend a model call on it. Reserve AI for the places where inputs are ambiguous: reading an email, classifying an intent, or drafting a first pass a human will approve.
And some steps shouldn’t be automated at all. High-stakes, low-frequency decisions belong to people. The goal isn’t maximum automation; it’s the right mix, so the system is cheap to run, easy to trust, and obvious to debug when something looks off.