The Agentic AI Framework

A Map, Not a Sales Pitch

Every AI vendor will tell you their solution transforms everything. What you actually need is a structured way to evaluate where AI agents will deliver real value in your business — and where they won't.

This framework gives you that structure. It's the same approach we use in our own product work, and it applies whether you're a 10-person startup or a 500-person enterprise.

Step 1: Map Your Workflows

Before you think about AI, you need a clear picture of how work actually flows through your organization. Not the org chart — the actual work.

For each major business function, identify:

• Inputs: What triggers the work? (Email, form submission, calendar event, manual request)
• Process: What steps happen? Who does them? In what order?
• Decisions: Where does someone need to make a judgment call?
• Outputs: What gets produced? (Document, email, database update, decision)
• Time: How long does each step take? How often does it happen?

Step 2: Score Each Process

Once you've mapped your workflows, score each one on five dimensions:

Volume

How often does this process run? Daily tasks with hundreds of instances score higher than quarterly tasks with a handful.

Repeatability

How standardized is the process? If 80% of cases follow the same pattern, it scores high. If every case is completely unique, it scores low.

Data Availability

Does the necessary information exist in digital form? Structured databases score higher than handwritten notes or tribal knowledge.

Impact

What's the business value of improving this process? Consider time savings, error reduction, revenue impact, and customer experience.

Risk Tolerance

What happens if the AI makes a mistake? Sending a slightly imperfect email draft is low risk. Miscalculating a financial report is high risk.

Dimension	Low Score (1-2)	High Score (4-5)
Volume	A few times per month	Hundreds per day
Repeatability	Every case is unique	80%+ follow a pattern
Data Availability	Tribal knowledge, paper	Digital, structured, API-accessible
Impact	Minor convenience	Major time/cost/revenue impact
Risk Tolerance	Zero margin for error	Errors are easy to catch and fix

A process that scores 4+ across all five dimensions is a strong candidate for AI agents. Scores of 2 or below on Risk Tolerance mean you should start with AI-augmented (human-in-the-loop) rather than fully automated.

Step 3: Identify Agent Opportunities

With your scored processes, you can now identify three tiers of opportunity:

Quick Wins (Deploy in 1-2 weeks)

These are simple, high-volume, low-risk tasks where an agent can immediately save time:

• Email drafting and response suggestions
• Data entry from structured forms
• FAQ and knowledge base lookups
• Meeting notes and action item extraction
• Document summarization

Core Agents (Build in 1-2 months)

These are the agents that will fundamentally change how a department operates:

• Customer support triage and first-response
• Sales lead qualification and research
• Report generation from multiple data sources
• Contract review and key term extraction
• Inventory monitoring and reorder recommendations

Strategic Systems (Develop over 3-6 months)

Multi-agent systems that coordinate across functions:

• End-to-end customer onboarding
• Automated research and competitive intelligence
• Full-cycle content creation and distribution
• Cross-department workflow orchestration

Step 4: Design the Agent Architecture

For each identified opportunity, define:

What the Agent Needs to Know

• What data sources does it access?
• What rules govern its decisions?
• What context does it need to maintain?
• What are the edge cases it needs to handle?

What the Agent Needs to Do

• What actions can it take?
• What systems does it interact with?
• What's the format and destination of its outputs?

Where Humans Stay in the Loop

• What decisions require human approval?
• How does the agent escalate issues?
• What review process exists for the agent's output?
• How do humans provide feedback to improve the agent?

How You'll Measure Success

• What metrics will you track? (Time saved, accuracy, throughput, cost)
• What's the baseline you're comparing against?
• What's the threshold for "good enough" to go live?

Step 5: Plan the Implementation Path

A proven implementation approach:

Week 1-2: Build the quick win. Ship it. Measure results.

Week 3-4: Iterate on the quick win based on feedback. Begin designing the first core agent.

Month 2: Build and deploy the first core agent with full human review.

Month 3: Reduce human review as confidence grows. Begin the second core agent.

Month 4-6: Connect agents into systems. Build the strategic layer.

The key is starting small, proving value, and expanding. Not building the Death Star on day one.