1–10 staff
The owner is the approver
- ·One or two agents on the noisiest jobs — missed calls and quoting.
- ·Everything approved from your phone, in a single daily queue.
- ·Pay run fees per agent, or a pack that covers a set of them.
Small & medium business
AI agents for small and medium business — and how to actually run them
Building an agent is no longer the hard part. Whether you are a two-person trade or a 150-person business across several sites, the difference between a novelty and a hire is supervision: a scorecard, a named owner, a halt switch, and a monthly review. This page is the playbook we use with Australian small and medium businesses — first job, running discipline, then growth.
Start with one job, not a strategy
Four handovers cover most businesses, at any size. Each one keeps a person on the outcome and gives the agent the drafting work.
| Role | The repeated job | What the agent does | Where you stay in control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front door | Missed calls and after-hours enquiries | Answer, capture the job details, book or route, then text you a summary. | Every booking confirmed to you before the customer is told. |
| Quoting | Repeat quotes off a price list | Draft the quote from the enquiry and your past pricing, ready for one-tap send. | Nothing leaves without owner approval. Non-standard jobs are held. |
| Debtors | Chasing overdue invoices | Polite reminders on a schedule, escalating to you at a threshold you set. | No discounting, no payment plans, no legal language. Ever. |
| Compliance | Licences, insurances and certificates | Track expiry dates, chase the document, file it where it belongs. | Reads and requests only. It never signs or submits on your behalf. |
Running it
Six things every live agent needs, at any size
None of this needs a technical team. It needs a named owner and about ten minutes a day. If you cannot answer who owns an agent and how to stop it, it should not be live.
- ·One owner named for every agent — an agent with no human owner gets switched off.
- ·A written can-never-do list before it goes anywhere near a customer.
- ·A halt switch per agent and one across the whole floor, effective on the next decision.
- ·A daily human queue: anything the agent held, in one place, cleared in a few minutes.
- ·An action ledger showing which actions were the agent's and which were a person's.
- ·A monthly review of four numbers: accuracy, cost per outcome, hold rate, console time.
Growing it
Add the next agent only once the last one has paid for itself
One agent, one job
Month 1Pick the noisiest repeated job. Rehearse it against your own past work until the scorecard is boring.
Prove the number
Month 2Track what the agent actually did and what it cost to run. If it is not worth it to you, fix or retire it.
Add the neighbour
Month 3Hire the agent next door to the first — quoting after front door, scheduling after quoting — so context is shared.
Promote by version
OngoingCorrections compile into a new approved version with a scheduled cutover, re-run against the permanent eval set.
What changes as you grow
The agents are the same. What changes is who owns them, how many run at once, and how the approvals are split up.
10–50 staff
Team leads own their own agents
- ·An agent per function: reception, quoting, debtors, scheduling, inbox.
- ·Each agent has a named owner, and approvals land with that person.
- ·Industry packs installed as a set, so context is shared between roles.
50–250 staff
A supervised floor, per site and department
- ·Separate agents per branch, site or department, sharing one policy.
- ·Role-based access: a manager sees their own queue and ledger only.
- ·Versioned promotion with a scheduled cutover, re-run against your eval set.
Common questions
Is this only for small businesses?
No. The trigger is repetition, not headcount. A sole trader can run one agent, and a 200-person business can run a floor of them — one named owner per agent, department-level packs, separate agents per site or team, and role-based access so a branch manager only sees their own queue.
What should you hand over first?
The job that interrupts you most and has the lowest cost of being wrong — usually missed calls, repeat quoting, or invoice chasing. Leave anything involving legal commitments, pricing exceptions or dispute handling with a person.
What does it cost?
A fixed-price Work Audit is USD 490, and done-with-you build sessions start at USD 450. Voice and SMS usage from providers like Twilio is metered and passed through at cost. Self-serve monthly plans are in early access. AUD invoicing is available on request.
Does an agent replace someone?
The pattern we see is that the repeated keyboard work goes first, and the people stay on the work that needs a human — judgement calls, relationships, and the messy jobs. We do not monitor or score your staff, by design.
Not sure which job to hand over first?
The Work Audit maps every repeated task in your business, costs it at the hourly rates you give us, and hands you a ranked build plan you keep either way. USD 490, credited in full against a build session within 60 days. AUD invoicing available on request.