How it works: the journey of one order through a company
An email arrives with an order attached as a PDF. Here's what happens to it today – and what happens once an AI agent takes over. One concrete case, no theory.
What happens to an order today
A model case drawn from process audits at our clients: a sales and service company whose orders arrive by email. The times are typical, not extreme.
The order lands in the shared inbox.
- waiting
1 h 38 min The administrator opens and reads it. Until then she was busy with other emails.
She retypes 14 items into the ERP. One code doesn't match the price list, so she looks it up.
She finds that only 80 of the 120 pcs of item 7 are in stock. She writes to the customer.
- waiting
overnight
15 h 20 min The customer replies: send 80 pcs, the rest later.
- waiting
1 h 15 min The administrator creates the order in the ERP and sends the confirmation.
The same order. With an agent.
On Wednesday morning nobody is retyping anything. This is how the order moved through the company with an agent – from the incoming email to the line in the report.
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Reads
The agent spots a new email in the orders inbox. It opens the attached PDF and reads it the way a person would – even if it's a scan.
new message · order_0917.pdf · 2 pages -
Extracts the items
From two pages of text it builds a structured list: 14 lines with code, quantity and price. It adds the delivery address and the requested date.
14 items · address · due by 12 Sep -
Checks against the ERP
It verifies every code, price and stock level directly in your ERP. 13 items match. For item 7 the customer wants 120 pcs; only 80 are in stock.
13 OK · 1 exception (item 7) -
Hands the exception to a person
The agent doesn't guess. It sends the administrator one question in Teams with a ready-made proposal: ship 80 pcs now and 40 pcs within 5 days? She confirms with one click.
question sent 14:54 · 15:06 approved by K. Nováková (sales) -
Confirms the order
It creates the order in the ERP and sends the customer a confirmation with both delivery dates. In your company's tone of voice.
order 2026-0917 created · confirmation sent -
Logs and reports
The whole run is kept in the log – what it read, what it found, who decided. The weekly report gains one line: 15 minutes, 1 of them human.
log saved · report updated
What changed with this one order
It isn't about reading speed. It's about the order not waiting until someone has time.
solid bar = stays with peoplehatched bar = taken over by the agent
- The order is confirmed on the day it arrives – at 17:00 or on a Saturday.
- Every item is checked against the ERP, not spot-checked.
- People deal only with exceptions – and get them with a proposed solution.
- You know exactly what happened, who decided and why.
The times are illustrative. In a pilot we measure them on your real orders.
- Emailread · send
- Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace
- ERP / warehouseread · write
- checks, creates orders
- Price list and rulesread only
- decides according to them
- Teams / Slackquestions
- asks people
- Log and reportwrite
- records every step
You don't need a new system
The agent connects to what you already use. For orders that's usually four things: the inbox, the ERP, the price list and a channel for asking people. Nothing gets migrated, nothing gets replaced.
What we need from you
- Access to the orders inbox – or forwarding to the agent's address.
- Access to the ERP via an API, an export or a database view. Read access is enough to start.
- The price list and the rules: what the agent may decide on its own and what it hands to a person.
- 20–30 real past orders. We test the agent on them before it ever sees a live email.
- A test account or test environment – we never start on live data.
- One person who decides on exceptions.
The agent's autonomy grows in steps you sign off: first it only proposes, then it acts with approval, and finally on its own within agreed limits. From the free process audit to a live pilot on one process usually takes 3–6 weeks.
How a deployment works, step by stepSame pattern, different requests
Read, extract, verify, decide, record. Once the agent has mastered this pattern on orders, it handles the other documents that reach you by email the same way.
- Read
- Extract
- Verify
- Decide
- Record
Supplier invoice
Matches it to the purchase order. Escalates any difference in the amount; posts a match straight to accounting.
Complaint with a photo
Finds the original order, checks the warranty and proposes a resolution. A person approves.
Request for a quote
Adds company details from the CRM and prepares a quote from the price list. A salesperson reviews and sends it.
Service request
Creates a service job, proposes a date and sends a confirmation.
What an AI agent can take on in your business
Choose the area where routine work slows your team down the most and see what an AI agent typically takes over there – and where the decision stays with your people.
Sales and orders
The agent takes over the routine around enquiries, quotes and orders – from the first email to the entry in your ERP.
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Qualifying incoming enquiries
The agent reads an enquiry from your website or inbox, enriches it with company data from public registers and your CRM, and scores it against your criteria. The sales rep gets a ranked list with a recommendation on who to call first.
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Drafting a quote
From the customer's request and your price list, the agent builds a draft quote, applying discounts according to rules you define. It only goes to the customer once the sales rep has approved it.
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Orders from email into the ERP
The agent recognises an order in the body or attachment of an email, matches the items to your product codes and creates the order in the ERP. Anything ambiguous is flagged and left for a person to confirm.
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Reminders and follow-ups
The agent keeps an eye on open quotes and unanswered enquiries, drafts a follow-up in the tone of the previous conversation and suggests the next step to the sales rep. The rep decides whether it is sent.
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Updating the CRM after a meeting
From meeting notes or a transcript, the agent pulls out the agreed tasks and deadlines, logs them in the CRM and drafts a summary for the customer. The summary is only sent after approval.
For example, a manufacturing company receives enquiries by email in every imaginable form – a spreadsheet one day, two sentences and a photo the next. The agent extracts the items, quantities and deadline from each one, adds the customer's history from the CRM and prepares a draft quote for the sales rep. The rep simply reviews it, adjusts it and sends it.
Email and customer support
The agent sorts incoming messages, answers routine questions from your own materials and hands more complex cases to the right person – with a draft reply already prepared.
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Sorting and routing messages
The agent works out what each message is about and assigns it to the right team or person, including a priority. Urgent cases are flagged and escalated immediately.
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Answering routine questions
Questions about delivery, prices or opening hours are answered by the agent from your own materials and systems. When it is unsure, it sends nothing – it prepares a draft for a person instead.
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Draft replies for your team
For more complex requests, the agent looks up the customer's history and related documents and prepares a suggested reply. Your team member edits it and sends it with one click.
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Handling customer complaints
From the email and photos, the agent extracts the order number, a description of the problem and what the customer is asking for, logs the complaint and confirms receipt. Whether the claim is accepted is always decided by your staff.
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Daily support overview
Every morning the agent summarises what came in, what is still open and which topics keep recurring. The team lead sees where work is piling up without going through the inbox.
For example, a shared support inbox receives dozens of messages a day – order status questions, complaints, invoice requests. The agent categorises each one, answers order status questions itself from the data in your system (provided the customer writes from the email address on the order) and logs each complaint as a ticket with a suggested reply. A member of your support team simply reviews the draft and sends it.
Online store and e-commerce
The agent keeps orders, products and customer questions in order – especially where the online store, warehouse, carriers and accounting do not talk to each other.
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Order status questions
The agent tells customers where their parcel is – from the store's and the carrier's data, by email or in chat – after verifying the order number and the customer's contact details. Anything out of the ordinary, such as a lost shipment, is handed to a person.
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Product copy and translations
From the supplier's materials, the agent prepares the product description, specifications and translations into other languages in your brand's tone of voice. Nothing is published until it has been approved.
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Supplier price lists and stock levels
The agent reads price lists and stock levels from supplier emails or portals, compares them with your current data and prepares a list of changes. Availability updates and price changes within the limits you set are applied automatically; bigger price jumps and new items wait for the store manager's confirmation.
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Returns and refunds
From a return request, the agent checks the order and the statutory return period, sends the customer instructions and a shipping label, and once the goods arrive at the warehouse it prepares the refund for processing. The refund itself is approved by your staff.
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Checking orders before dispatch
The agent goes through new orders and flags inconsistencies – an incomplete address, an unmatched payment or an item that is out of stock. The warehouse only deals with genuine exceptions.
For example, an online store with several thousand products receives price lists and product descriptions from suppliers in all sorts of formats. The agent extracts the price and availability changes, prepares product copy based on your template and submits everything for approval. The store manager confirms the changes in bulk instead of editing every item by hand.
Finance and accounting
The agent prepares and checks documents, payment matching and month-end materials – the decision and the approval always stay with the accountant.
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Capturing incoming invoices
The agent reads an invoice from an email or scan, extracts the supplier, line items, amounts and VAT, and prepares the entry in your accounting system. The accountant confirms the posting.
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Matching invoices to purchase orders
The agent compares each invoice with the purchase order and delivery note and flags differences in price or quantity, as well as duplicates. Discrepancies are passed to the responsible person for comment.
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Payment matching and reminders
The agent proposes how to match incoming payments to issued invoices by reference number, amount or payer name – ambiguous cases are left to the accountant. For overdue invoices it drafts a reminder in the agreed tone and sends it only after your approval.
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Month-end close preparation
Ahead of the close, the agent identifies which documents are missing or awaiting approval and requests them from the colleagues responsible. The accountant gets a list of what is still outstanding.
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Questions about the numbers
Management asks in plain language – revenue by cost centre, unpaid invoices, costs for a period – and the agent answers from the accounting data with a reference to the source. It only reads the data and never changes it.
For example, an accounting inbox receives hundreds of invoices a month – PDFs, scans and photos taken on a phone. The agent extracts the data from each one, checks the VAT number in VIES and the bank account against the tax authority's register, matches the invoice to its purchase order and prepares the accounting entry. The accountant approves the prepared documents instead of retyping them.
Healthcare and clinics
The agent takes over administration and patient communication – scheduling, reminders, sorting messages and preparing paperwork – never diagnosis or clinical decisions.
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Booking and rescheduling appointments
The agent takes appointment requests from email, a web form or chat, offers available slots based on the type of examination and, once the patient confirms, books the appointment in the practice's scheduling calendar. Changes and cancellations are handled the same way – no waiting on the phone.
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Reminders and patient preparation
A day or two before the examination, the agent sends patients who have consented to electronic communication a reminder with the instructions the doctor has defined for that type of examination (fasting, documents, test results). If a patient replies that they cannot make it, the slot is released and offered to the next person on the waiting list.
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Sorting patient messages
The agent divides incoming emails and messages into administrative (confirmations, appointments, documents) and medical. Administrative ones are prepared for handling; anything concerning a patient's health – and anything it is not sure about – is passed to the nurse or doctor without any assessment, and the agent does not reply to the patient itself.
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Prescription and certificate requests
From a request for a repeat prescription or a certificate (for school, an employer or an insurer), the agent gathers the necessary details, verifies that the person is a registered patient and prepares a clear list of requests with supporting details for the doctor. Prescriptions and certificates are issued exclusively by the doctor in their own practice software – the agent then simply lets the patient know it is ready.
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Insurer reporting and administration
The agent checks that reported procedures have complete data, flags missing items before the batch is submitted to the health insurer and prepares a monthly overview of visits and procedures. Sensitive data is handled in line with GDPR – within the EU or on the practice's infrastructure, under a data processing agreement.
For example, a private practice receives dozens of emails, web form messages and text messages a day asking for an appointment, a prescription or a certificate. The agent sorts the requests, books routine appointments directly in the practice's scheduling calendar, prepares prescription requests for the doctor as a clear list with supporting details, and immediately hands anything that sounds like a health concern to the nurse. Patient data is processed only under a data processing agreement, within the EU or on the practice's own infrastructure, and is never used to train models.
Logistics and transport
The agent takes over communication with carriers and customers, document processing and shipment tracking – everything the dispatcher currently squeezes in between phone calls.
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Transport enquiries and quotes
The agent reads enquiries from email and freight exchanges, extracts the route, date, dimensions and weight, asks the customer for anything missing and prepares a draft quote based on your price list. The dispatcher confirms the price.
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Shipment tracking and customer updates
The agent keeps checking shipment status in carrier systems and, when a delay is looming, alerts the dispatcher and drafts a notification for the customer – sent according to rules you define, or once the dispatcher confirms. If the route or unloading time changes, it updates the TMS and notifies the consignee.
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Checking delivery notes and CMRs
From photos and scans of delivery notes or CMR consignment notes, the agent extracts the data, compares it with the order and flags differences – missing signatures, damage, a different quantity. Clean documents are filed; disputed ones are passed on for review.
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Invoicing shipments and handling claims
Once delivery is confirmed, the agent prepares the invoice at the agreed rate plus surcharges (waiting time, tolls, fuel), attaches the documents and submits it to the billing clerk for approval – only then does it go to the customer. Claims are sorted, the evidence gathered (CMR, photos, correspondence) and a draft reply prepared; whether a claim is accepted is decided by a person.
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Communicating with drivers and carriers
The agent sends loading instructions to drivers and subcontractors, checks confirmations and documents (insurance, licences) and alerts the dispatcher to anything missing or about to expire. Drivers' questions about the route or paperwork are answered directly.
For example, a small freight forwarder receives transport enquiries by email in dozens of different formats. The agent extracts the route, date, type and quantity of goods from each enquiry, checks them against the price list and prepares a draft quote. The dispatcher reviews the quote and sends it – instead of reading and retyping every email by hand.
Manufacturing and warehouse
The agent takes over order processing, supplier paperwork, stock monitoring and planning inputs – work that currently keeps people at a desk instead of on the shop floor.
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Checking supplier documents
The agent matches delivery notes and material certificates to the purchase order, compares quantities, batches and the required certificates, and passes any deviations to the warehouse or the buyer. Clean receipts are booked directly into the ERP.
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Stock monitoring and material ordering
The agent watches stock levels and open jobs and, when stock drops below the minimum, prepares a purchase order proposal for the supplier based on lead times and prices. The buyer approves it, the agent sends the order and tracks its confirmation.
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Customer quality complaints
From a customer complaint, the agent extracts the part number, batch and defect description, pulls the related production and inspection records and prepares the groundwork for an 8D report. Root cause and corrective actions are determined by the quality engineer.
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Daily production overview and deviations
From production, downtime and quality data, the agent puts together a morning briefing for shift management: what was completed, where things slipped and which jobs are at risk. Questions such as “where are we on job X” are answered straight from the data.
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Customer updates on delivery dates
The agent answers verified customers' questions about job status and dispatch dates from current data and, if a date slips, drafts a notification. The date change is confirmed by the planner.
For example, an engineering company receives dozens of delivery notes and material certificates a day – on paper, by email and through supplier portals. The agent matches each document to its purchase order, compares quantities, batches and certificates, and books clean receipts straight into the ERP. If something does not add up – a missing certificate, a different batch, a quantity mismatch – it puts the receipt on hold and alerts the buyer.
HR and internal processes
The agent takes over CV screening, employee questions, onboarding paperwork and approval workflows – decisions about people stay with you.
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Candidate overview from CVs
The agent extracts experience, education, languages and other details from CVs and cover letters into a single overview and, for each requirement of the role, notes where in the document the candidate addresses it. It does not reject or score anyone – every candidate is assessed by the recruiter, who decides who is invited to interview.
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Candidate communication and interviews
The agent confirms receipt of applications, proposes interview slots based on the team's calendar and, once confirmed, sends invitations and reminders. Replies to unsuccessful candidates are prepared for approval.
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Employee onboarding and offboarding
When someone joins, the agent follows your checklist: it prepares the contract paperwork, raises IT access requests, prepares an equipment order for approval and sends the new colleague their welcome information. When someone leaves, it raises requests to revoke access and return equipment and checks that they have been completed. Contracts are always signed and orders approved by a person.
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Answering employee questions
Employees ask about leave, meal allowances, benefits or internal procedures in plain language in Teams or by email. The agent answers from your policies with a link to the source and passes anything the policies do not cover to HR.
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Request approvals and attendance
Leave, home office and internal purchase requests are checked by the agent against the rules and remaining balances, sent to the relevant manager for approval and, once approved, recorded in the system. Before the payroll cut-off it chases unresolved requests and missing attendance records.
For example, a mid-sized company receives dozens of CVs in various formats for a single job ad. The agent reads each CV, extracts experience, education and how the candidate meets the requirements into a single table, prepares a short summary and confirms receipt to the candidates. The recruiter starts the selection with a clear overview instead of a folder full of PDFs – and decides for themselves who to invite to interview; the agent never rejects anyone automatically.
Real estate and property management
The agent takes over communication with prospective buyers and tenants, fault logging and the routine administration around leases and building management.
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Replying to property enquiries
The agent reads enquiries from property portals, your website and email, answers basic questions about the property from your records and proposes a viewing slot based on the broker's calendar. Non-standard requests – price negotiation, for instance – are handed to the broker.
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Logging and triaging faults
From tenant messages (email, form, chat), the agent identifies the type of fault and how urgent it is, creates a request in the property management system and, according to your rules, either assigns it to an in-house technician or prepares a job for a contracted supplier for the property manager to confirm. Emergencies are escalated to the property manager immediately by SMS and push notification.
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Meter readings and statement inputs
The agent collects meter readings from tenants – from photos, emails or a form – reads the values, compares them with consumption history and flags unusual deviations for review. The inputs for the annual service charge statement go to the accountant, who approves them.
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Viewing and handover paperwork
Before the meeting, the agent compiles a property summary and pre-fills the handover report with data from your records – tenant, unit, fixtures and fittings. After the viewing it adds meter readings from photos and the broker's notes; the broker checks the report and has it signed.
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Tenant questions about statements
The agent answers routine tenant questions – payment status, statement breakdown, the energy supplier's contact details – straight from the accounting records and the property management system, after verifying that the message comes from the tenant of that unit (from their registered email or after logging in to the portal). Disputed statements and contentious cases are passed to the property manager with a ready-made summary.
For example, a property management company with several hundred rental units receives dozens of emails from tenants a day – from reported faults to questions about service charge statements. The agent sorts every message, logs faults in the property management system and suggests a technician, and answers routine statement questions from the records. The property manager is left only with the cases that require a decision.
Service and field operations
The agent takes over the intake of service requests, the scheduling of call-outs and the paperwork around each job – so technicians spend their time on repairs, not administration.
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Intake and triage of service requests
The agent reads reports from email, a web form or the customer portal, identifies the equipment, the type of fault and its urgency, adds customer and service contract details from your system and creates the job. If details are missing, it asks the customer directly.
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Proposed daily call-out schedule
The agent groups jobs by location, technician qualifications and availability, and contractual response times, and uses map data to propose the order of call-outs for the day. The dispatcher reviews, adjusts and approves the schedule – only then are the technicians notified.
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Service reports from technician notes
After the job, the technician dictates or types a few sentences and photographs the equipment label. The agent turns this into a service report with the materials used and hours worked; the technician confirms it on their phone, the agent sends it to the customer and passes the details on for invoicing.
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Inspections and preventive maintenance
The agent tracks inspection dates and service intervals from contracts and the equipment register, proposes dates to customers well in advance, agrees them by email and adds them to the schedule. Unanswered requests are escalated to the dispatcher after the agreed time.
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Keeping customers informed on job status
The agent answers verified customers' questions about the status of a repair, the technician's arrival or the delivery of a spare part from the data in the service system, and sends appointment confirmations and change notifications itself. Complaints are passed to the service manager with a summary of the case.
For example, a service company with a dozen field technicians receives fault reports by email, web form and text message, and the dispatcher would otherwise retype them into a scheduling spreadsheet by hand. The agent takes in every report, asks for any missing details, creates the job and suggests a technician based on location and qualifications. The dispatcher simply reviews and confirms the daily schedule.
Marketing and content
The agent takes over research and preparation, first drafts and routine reporting – what gets published is decided by your people.
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Draft copy in your brand voice
From a source document – a product sheet, a brief or meeting notes – the agent drafts an article, social post or newsletter following your style guide and previously approved copy. Nothing is published until a person has edited and approved it.
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Campaign reports without spreadsheets
The agent pulls data from your ad accounts, web analytics and CRM, compiles a weekly overview with commentary on what changed since last week and flags campaigns whose cost per result is rising. Budget decisions stay with the team.
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Keeping the website up to date
The agent regularly compares the copy on your website and in your catalogues with current data – prices, contact details, availability, product names – and looks for broken links and outdated information. It proposes specific corrections; the web manager approves and publishes them.
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Newsletters by customer segment
The agent segments contacts using data from your CRM and online store – industry, purchase history, activity – and tailors the newsletter wording and recommended products for each segment. The send-out is approved by the marketer.
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Reviews and brand mentions
The agent monitors reviews and brand mentions, summarises their tone and recurring themes and drafts a reply in your brand voice. Simple thank-you replies can – if you allow it – be posted automatically; negative and sensitive cases are passed to the responsible person for approval before anything is published.
For example, the marketing team at a manufacturing company gets technical updates from the engineering department every week that need to be turned into copy for the website, newsletter and social media, and every Monday it compiles a report from the ad accounts. The agent prepares drafts for all channels from a single source document in the brand's tone of voice and compiles the report itself. The team only edits and approves.
Contracts and documents
The agent takes over reading, checking and sorting documents – it extracts data from emails, scans and PDFs, compares it against your rules and files it where it belongs.
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Extracting data from documents
From contracts, amendments, powers of attorney or official decisions – whether from email or a scan – the agent extracts the parties, amounts, deadlines and reference numbers and records them in the DMS or ERP. Anything illegible or ambiguous is flagged for manual review rather than guessed.
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Checking contracts against your template
The agent compares a draft contract with your template and internal rules, highlights deviations and missing clauses and prepares a plain-language summary of the risks. Changes and signing are decided by the lawyer or a director.
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Tracking deadlines and expiry dates
The agent records notice periods, automatic renewals, warranty expiry and payment due dates from your contracts and reminds the responsible person well in advance, together with a suggested next step – terminate, renew or renegotiate the terms.
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Sorting and filing documents
The agent recognises each incoming document by type – contract, invoice, termination notice, official correspondence – names it according to your conventions, files it in the right DMS folder and notifies the person who needs to act on it, including the deadline. Official e-government mail (slovensko.sk) addressed for personal delivery is always collected by an authorised person – the agent only records it and tracks the deadline.
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Generating documents from templates
Using data from your CRM or ERP, the agent fills in your templates – a non-disclosure agreement, a purchase order, a framework agreement, a power of attorney – checks the mandatory fields and prepares the document for review and signature. It never changes the template wording, only the variable data.
For example, a trading company receives contracts and amendments from suppliers in dozens of formats, and the lawyer would have to read every one in full before signing. The agent compares each draft with the company template, highlights deviations in payment terms, liability or notice periods and prepares a summary. The lawyer knows in advance where the contract departs from the template and decides on signing.

When an agent pays off – and when it doesn't yet
An agent isn't right for every process. In the free process audit we recommend one only when four things are true.
- The activity repeats – dozens to hundreds of cases a month.
- The rules can be written down, even if they have exceptions.
- The inputs exist in emails, documents or systems.
- A mistake can be caught – by approval, review or reversal.
Not yet: One-off projects. Decisions nobody dares to write down. Data that can't be reached. In those cases we'll tell you straight away.
What people ask after this example
What if the order arrives in a different format – Excel, a photo or text in the body of the email?
The agent works with text and images alike. It reads a PDF, a scan, a photo, a spreadsheet or text in an email the same way. If it isn't sure what's what, it asks a person instead of guessing.
How do you know the agent read the quantities and codes correctly?
It checks every item against the ERP – an unknown code or an off-list price isn't recorded – it's escalated to a person. During the pilot we also compare the agent's results with how a person processed the same orders and tune the rules.
Do we have to change our ERP or email for this?
No. The agent connects to what you use – via an API, an export or a database view. If a system has no API, we add one as a small piece of custom software.
What will the people whose work the agent takes over do?
What they have no time for today: customers, exceptions, sales. In the example above, the administrator spent one minute deciding an exception instead of 35 minutes retyping – and had the rest of the day for enquiries that bring in revenue.
At what volume does it start to make sense?
Roughly from a few dozen requests a month, or wherever a single mistake is expensive. At lower volumes simpler automation usually pays off sooner – we work out the numbers in the free process audit.
Which request waits the longest at your company?
In a free consultation we'll walk through one of your real orders, invoices or enquiries and show where an agent would take over and where a person stays in the loop. No strings attached.
Free consultation