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Assisted work, built tooling, or systematic automation. Most teams reach straight for the last one, which is the one they should reach for last. Route up to five workflows and find out what each one actually needs.
Every AI-suitable workflow belongs on one of three routes. Route A is assisted work, where a person does the task and AI speeds up the thinking and writing, deployable in days to weeks. Route B is built tooling, a small internal tool doing one defined job, deployable in weeks. Route C is systematic automation, where a defined process runs at volume with monitoring and escalation around it, taking months. Route C is where the word agent belongs, and it requires five criteria to be met without exception. Rushi Vyas routes workflows this way inside the AI Process Audit.
The three routes
A person does the task, the tool speeds up the thinking and the writing. Drafting, summarising, comparing documents, first pass analysis, turning something technical into something readable. Delivered as chat based and role specific assistants, connected to your own documents where useful.
Someone builds a small internal tool or automation that does a defined job. The kind of thing that historically sat in a queue for eight months because it was too small to prioritise and too fiddly to do by hand. Internal applications, data cleanup routines, report generators, and bridges between systems that do not talk to each other.
A defined process runs at volume with limited human involvement, with monitoring and escalation around it. This is where the word agent belongs, and it is the route people reach for first and should reach for last.
Route your workflow
Does this task need human judgement on most occurrences, rather than following the same steps each time?
Questions
Because its failure mode is quiet. The process looks fine while producing subtly wrong outputs nobody checks, since the entire point was to stop checking. It earns its place only when five criteria are all met.
It is usually what pays first. In one university finance function, assisted work took approval processing from more than four days to under two, with no agents and no core system changes.
Often, over time. Most start on Route A, earn a Route B tool once the pattern is proven, and only a few ever justify Route C.
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