Traditional automation is excellent at rules. If this, then that. It runs reliably and cheaply, and for most repetitive work it’s all you need.
Phase 4 · Automate
Agentic AI Automation
Not a chatbot answering a question — an agent completing a task. Looking something up, updating a record, deciding what happens next, and moving between systems to finish the job.
- From £5,500
- Human checkpoints built in
- Your keys, your accounts
Agent · invoice check
✓Read the supplier email
✓Looked up the purchase order
✓Spotted the mismatch
…Draft reply · awaiting you
CheckpointSend this reply?
ApproveEdit
CRM
Email
Calendar
Human checkpoint
The problem
Most automation can’t handle exceptions
It falls over the moment a task requires reading something and deciding. An enquiry arrives written in a way the form didn’t anticipate. An invoice doesn’t match the purchase order for a reason a human would spot immediately. A supplier email says “we can do Thursday instead” and something has to work out what that means for three other bookings.
Those are the tasks that stay manual — not because they’re difficult, but because they need judgement applied to unstructured information. And they’re often the ones eating the most time.
The way out
That’s the gap agents fill. They’re also the newest and least proven part of this field, and this page is going to be honest about that.
What AI agents can and can’t do yet
An honest assessment
This area is heavily oversold. Here’s our actual read, and we’ll update it as things change.
Where agents work well now
Retrieving and reconciling information
Reading unstructured input — an email, a document, a form filled in oddly — extracting what matters, and putting it in the right place. This is the strongest current use case.
Multi-step tasks in defined systems
Look up the customer, check their history, update the record, notify the right person, create the follow-up task. Each step is verifiable and the boundaries are clear.
Routing and triage
Reading an enquiry, working out what it actually concerns, and sending it to the right place with a summary attached.
Drafting for human approval
Producing the first version of a reply, a quote, a report — with a person checking it before it goes anywhere.
Monitoring and flagging
Watching for things that don’t look right and escalating them, rather than acting on them.
Where they don’t work reliably yet
Unsupervised high-stakes decisions
Anything financial, legal, contractual or safety-related needs a human checkpoint. Not because agents always get it wrong, but because they get it wrong occasionally and confidently, and you can’t tell which time is which without looking.
Tasks where errors are expensive and invisible
If a mistake surfaces immediately, an agent is fine — you’ll catch it. If a mistake sits undetected for three months and then costs you a client, don’t automate it without review.
Anything requiring accountability
When something goes wrong, someone has to be answerable. “The agent decided” is not a position you want to be in with a customer or a regulator.
Systems without APIs
Agents can sometimes work through interfaces designed for humans, but it’s fragile and it breaks when the interface changes. We’d rather tell you it isn’t practical than build something that fails silently in six weeks.
Genuinely ambiguous judgement
Where two reasonable people would disagree, an agent will pick one and sound certain. That’s worse than no answer.
Our position
Agents are genuinely useful for a narrower set of tasks than the marketing suggests, and properly useful for those. We’d rather build three that work than fifteen that need constant supervision — which defeats the purpose.
Our process
How the work runs
- Step 01 of 06
Free automation audit
Which tasks genuinely need judgement, and which are simple rules in disguise.
- Step 02 of 06
Feasibility assessment
Whether the systems involved can actually support an agent reliably.
- Step 03 of 06
Design with checkpoints
Mapping where a human confirms, before anything irreversible happens.
- Step 04 of 06
Build & constrain
Built with defined boundaries, so the agent can’t act outside its remit.
- Step 05 of 06
Shadow running
Run alongside the manual process until it’s demonstrably reliable.
- Step 06 of 06
Monitor & review
Ongoing review of decisions made, with boundaries adjusted as needed.
What’s included
In every agent build
Feasibility assessment first
An honest answer on whether an agent suits the task.
Defined operating boundaries
Explicit limits on what the agent can and cannot do.
Human checkpoints
Confirmation steps before anything irreversible or externally visible.
Audit trail
A record of every decision made and why, reviewable afterwards.
Shadow-run period
Running alongside the manual process until reliability is proven.
Your keys & accounts
API access and credentials registered to you, never held here.
Who this is for
Agentic automation probably fits if
- 01A task needs reading and deciding, not just following rules
- 02Your systems have APIs the agent can work through
- 03Errors would surface quickly rather than hide for months
- 04A human can review the output before it matters
- 05Simpler automation has already been tried and isn’t enough
- Sounds like you?Get a free automation audit
Probably not yet if
Simpler automation would do
Errors would be expensive and hard to detect
Nobody has capacity to review what the agent does
Simpler automation is cheaper and more reliable, and it’s the most common thing we recommend instead.
Simpler automationWhere this fits
Automate is phase four of four
Phase04of 04Automate
This is the furthest point in the system, and it depends on everything before it. An agent working with lead data needs that data captured consistently, which is phase three. An agent answering from your services needs those services documented, which is phase one.
It’s also the phase we’re most likely to advise you against starting with. Not because it doesn’t work, but because the businesses that get value from agents are usually the ones that already fixed the simpler things — and the ones that haven’t get more from doing that first.
Pricing
Agentic automation pricing
Agentic AI Automation
Swipe to compare
| Feature | StandardMost Popular | Advanced | Custom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | £5,500 | £9,500 | From£15,000 |
| Scope | Single agent, defined task, one or two systems | Multiple agents or complex multi-system workflows | Bespoke, including regulated environments |
| Checkpoints | Human confirmation on key actions | Configurable approval layers | As specified |
Feasibility assessment: free — including the answer that an agent isn’t right for this.
Ongoing monitoring and review: £450–£950/month. LLM usage billed at cost, in your name. Agent workloads use more than chatbots — typically £40–£200/month, estimated before you commit.
01How is an agent different from a chatbot?
A chatbot answers a question. An agent completes a task — retrieving information, updating records, deciding what happens next, and moving between systems to finish the job.
02How often do agents get things wrong?
Often enough that high-stakes actions need a human checkpoint. The shadow-run period exists precisely so you see the real error rate on your own tasks before relying on it.
03What if it does something we didn't want?
Boundaries are defined explicitly and irreversible actions require confirmation. There's also an audit trail of every decision, so you can see what happened and why.
04Is this worth doing yet, honestly?
For a narrow set of tasks, yes. For most businesses, simpler automation delivers more for less. The audit will tell you which category you're in, and we'll say if it's the second.
05What does it cost to run?
Typically £40–£200 a month in LLM usage, more than a chatbot because agents do more reasoning per task. Billed at cost, estimated before you commit.
06Who's accountable if an agent makes a mistake?
You are, which is why checkpoints matter. Any agent acting on customer-facing or financial decisions without human review is a risk we'd advise against taking.
Next step
Find out whether an agent is the right answer
Get a free automation audit and feasibility assessment. We’ll look at the task, tell you whether an agent genuinely suits it, and recommend simpler automation when that’s the better answer — which it often is.
- Based in Ilford, East London
- Call +44 7366 355562
- Mon–Fri, 10am–6pm