The Fundamentals of Agentic AI:

Most owners I talk to are in the same place: excited by what AI can do, but concerned with how it could accelerate the competition. You’ve played with ChatGPT, you’ve seen slick AI demos at a conference, and now you’re wondering, “Okay…how does this fit into my business??”

Short answer: it’s time to stop using AI as a one off tool, and start sculpting it into a reliable team member, that’s the goal behind Agentic AI. Agentic AI—small, specialized “bots” that take a job off your plate and do it the same way, every time. Think of agents as dependable junior team members: they have a job description, they collaborate with others, they remember context, and they take initiative inside the guardrails you set.

This post focuses on providing a practical way to understand Agentic AI—how to spot good use cases and start small without wasting your time or money.

What is Agentic AI?

Think of ChatGPT as a call center that is really helpful whenever you have a question. The problem is that for every task you have to call them and hope you get the same quality performance each time. Agentic AI is building an agent—like a secret agent. Think about James Bond: he’s given a generalized goal, goes around solving mysteries and blowing things up, until he solves the goal and returns to MI6 for the next mission. That’s how we approach Agentic AI, except for all the blowing up parts. 

With Agentic AI, you provide an input or a trigger (“when a new email arrives,” “every morning at 7am,” “when the point-of-sale closes”), it uses every tool at its disposal to attempt to resolve the task, and then delivers an outcome you care about. 

How to Invent an Agent:

One of the biggest mistakes people make with Agentic AI is to start building before they’ve really mapped out all the factors in the task. Imagine all the information James Bond is given for his missions, and that’s just for 90 minutes of exotic travel and explosions. Before you start building, map out exactly what the agent will do and how it fits into your existing operations. Write it first as a sequence of steps and then start to handle all the different possible exceptions (“if this, then that”). 

When you're mapping where AI could help, start by answering these questions:

What business outcome should the agent achieve?
Be specific. Not "help with customer service" but "reduce average email response time from 4 hours to 30 minutes" or "ensure every inquiry gets a first response within 15 minutes."

Where does the agent sit in your workflow?
What triggers it to start working? What does it hand off to a human or another system when it's done? Understanding the handoffs prevents the agent from becoming an island.

What decisions can it make alone, and what requires human approval?
Draw a clear line. The agent might be able to tag and route emails on its own, but any email mentioning legal issues or containing a complaint gets flagged for human review.

What context should it remember to stay consistent?
Does it need to know your company policies? Customer history? Previous interactions? Pricing tiers? The more relevant context you give it, the more reliable it becomes.

If that still feels abstract, think of LEGO bricks. Each brick is a capability: read an email, summarize content, look up a customer in your database, draft a reply, log the interaction to your CRM. Snap a few bricks together with a clear goal, and you've built something useful—without needing to construct a life-size castle on day one.

How to tell if Agentic AI is a fit:

Ask yourself:

1. Do we have repeatable, rule-of-thumb tasks? Email triage, answering common questions, formatting reports, kicking off the same 5 steps every time X happens.
   
   

2. Is there a “good enough” outcome we can define? Not perfection—just consistent and on-spec: “Summarize key dates + action items,” “Route billing questions to A, VIPs to B.”
   
   

3. Can we measure success quickly? Time saved, response time improved, fewer handoffs, fewer errors, more completed tickets before noon.

If you're nodding along, you're agent-ready.

Example Use Cases:

• Inbox Triage & Summaries: Agent reads inbound mail, tags/routes it, produces a one-page daily brief, and drafts first-pass replies for approval.

• Front Desk or Information Desk: For a museum, clinic, or venue: hours, tickets, directions, group rates, memberships—answered consistently via web, kiosk, or phone.

• Finance Ops “Prepper”: Pull yesterday’s transactions, flag anomalies, prep the reconciliation checklist, and ping the right owner when thresholds trip.

• Facilities & Security Glue: Monitor camera events or sensor logs, correlate them, and trigger the correct workflow (notify, lock, call) with a human in the loop for high-risk actions.

None of these replace experts. They buy your experts back hours every week and reduce dropped balls.

Build vs. Buy (or: Tool vs. Partner):

When off-the-shelf is enough:

• Clear, common pattern (summarize → tag → route).

• One team, one system of record.

• You have a curious, hands-on operator who can own a workflow tool.

When to bring in a partner:

• Multiple systems and messy edge cases.

• Compliance or safety-critical workflows.

• Need for scale, observability, and robust monitoring.

• You want coaching on the process (designing guardrails, measuring value, productionizing).

How to hire wisely:

• Hands-on AI chops, not just tool talk. Ask about models, evaluation, prompts and guardrails.

• Great listeners. Your partner should translate your process, not force you into a rigid template.

• Iterative mindset. Look for week-over-week experiments, rapid feedback, and an acceptance that the first version is a learning tool—not the finish line.

Common Pitfalls (And How to Avoid Them):

• Pitfall: Starting too big.
  Cure: pick a 30–90 minute weekly task and target a 50% time reduction.
  
  

• Pitfall: “Set it and forget it.”
  Cure: schedule a weekly 20-minute review of agent outputs; promote reliable steps to full autonomy over time.
  
  

• Pitfall: No metrics.
  Cure: track 2 numbers from day one (e.g., average handle time and % escalations).
  
  

• Pitfall: Poor memory management.
  Cure: define exactly what the agent can “remember” (policies, customer tiers) and where that lives.

A Simple Example You Can Try:

Use case: Daily inbox brief for operations@company.com.

• Goal: By 9:15am, deliver a one-page summary of new emails with priorities, owners, and first-pass replies.

• Role: Agent acts as Ops Coordinator’s assistant; hands off anything VIP/legal.

• Autonomy: May tag, draft replies, and assign tickets; must escalate vendors over $5k, legal terms, or unhappy VIPs.

• Memory: Current SLAs, VIP list, vendor thresholds, tone/style guide, and the last 7 days of decisions.

Even simple use cases like this can reclaim hours each week and give your team breathing room to focus on higher-value work.

Once you’ve got the sequence down, start to transform it into a detailed prompt for AI. There’s no need to waste time writing this in detail, we can use AI to help build our AI here. Here’s a prompt to feed to ChatGPT: 

The following is a list of steps for an AI agent to accomplish, and your task is to help create a robust, detailed description for the agent. Write out a detailed prompt from the sequence for the agent. Where there are gaps in the sequence or core questions that need to be answered, fill those in but encapsulate these areas with (*** AI INVENTED ***) so that it can be reviewed. 

See the bottom of this post for the prompt we generated for this example. 

Where to Prototype:

Don’t always wait for an idea. Start with a tiny, obvious win and let momentum show you the next “brick” to snap on.

If you’re DIY-curious, Langflow is a friendly, drag-and-drop way to stitch steps together and see how an agent behaves. Gumloop offers a similar “click-to-compose” approach with hosting and integrations. Start there to learn what good looks like—then decide whether to productionize with a partner. Once you've validated the workflow saves time, you can either keep the prototype running or rebuild it with a development partner for better reliability and integration with your existing systems.

Agentic AI is about process and experimentation.

Agentic AI works best when you treat it like improving a process, not summoning a wizard. Define the job, give it teammates, set the guardrails, and let it learn—one small win at a time.

If you want help scoping a pilot or coaching your team through a build, I teach hands-on workshops and we run these pilots with clients every month. 

Curious where an agent would pay off fastest in your business? Send me one repetitive task you’d love to never touch again, and I’ll reply with a starter you can use.

Example: AI Ops Coordinator – Morning Email Triage Agent

Objective

By 9:15am (America/Los_Angeles), produce a one-page summary of new emails received since yesterday 9:15am with:

• Priority (P0–P3)

• Owner (person/team)

• First-pass reply draft (saved as a draft, not sent)

• Disposition (reply, assign, escalate, ignore/archive)

The agent may tag, draft replies, and assign tickets. It must escalate anything involving vendors > $5k, legal terms, or unhappy VIPs.

Persistent Memory (available to the agent)

• Current SLAs, VIP list, vendor thresholds, tone/style guide, and the last 7 days of decisions.

If any memory item is missing at runtime, mark it (* AI INVENTED *) in the output and use the fallback below.

Inputs (pull at start)

1. Email scope: Inbox messages received after yesterday 9:15am and before today 9:10am.
   
   

2. Context memories:
   
   

   • SLAs: response windows by category. If absent, use (*** AI INVENTED ***) defaults below.
     
     

   • VIP list: emails/domains labeled VIP. If absent, infer VIPs by titles (“CEO”, “Founder”), domain allowlist, and past escalations (*** AI INVENTED ***).
     
     

   • Vendor thresholds: any vendor commitment >$5,000 or new MSA/terms triggers escalation.
     
     

   • Tone/style guide: concise, professional, friendly; no emojis; write at 9th–11th grade level; avoid unqualified claims. If house style missing, use this (*** AI INVENTED ***).
     
     

   • Routing rules (owner matrix): see below (*** AI INVENTED ***).
     
     

3. Ticketing: access to task board/labels (New, Waiting, Blocked, Escalated).
   
   

4. Calendar: today’s hard stops (to avoid assigning owners who are OOO) (*** AI INVENTED *** if not available).

Priority Model

• P0 (Critical): VIP dissatisfaction, security/legal exposure, revenue at risk, deadlines <24h.
  
  

• P1 (High): Customer issues impacting delivery or cash flow; vendor actions needed <72h; exec requests.
  
  

• P2 (Normal): Routine ops, scheduling, FYIs requiring light action.
  
  

• P3 (Low): Non-actionable marketing, newsletters, duplicates.

If uncertain, choose higher priority and note Confidence.

Owner Routing (*** AI INVENTED ***)

Create/maintain a simple routing map (edit as we learn):

• Billing/Invoices/POs → Finance@ / Ops-Billing
  
  

• Contracts/MSA/Legal terms → Legal@ (always escalate)
  
  

• Enterprise sales / partnerships → BD Lead
  
  

• Customer support / bugs → Support Lead + tag support

  

• Vendors (>$5k or terms) → Ops Manager + Legal (escalate)
  
  

• Press/PR → Comms Lead
  
  

• Internal approvals → Requesting manager’s chain
  If multiple plausible owners, assign Primary + FYI list. Record rationale.

SLA Defaults (*** AI INVENTED ***)

• VIP P0: 2 business hours
  
  

• VIP P1: Same business day
  
  

• Non-VIP P0: 4 business hours
  
  

• Non-VIP P1: 1 business day
  
  

• P2: 2 business days
  
  

• P3: No action unless requested

Overdue or due-today items get “⚠ Due Today” in the summary.

Disposition Rules

• Reply: clear question or status request within autonomy; draft reply and label drafted.
  
  

• Assign: create/attach ticket with clear next action and due date based on SLA; label assigned.
  
  

• Escalate: any >$5k, legal terms, VIP dissatisfaction, security/privacy; label escalated.
  
  

• Ignore/Archive: newsletters/ads/duplicates; label archived; never for VIPs.
  
  

Red-Flag/Escalation Triggers (must escalate)

• Mentions of “contract,” “terms,” “NDA,” “MSA,” “indemnity,” “liability,” “IP,” “governing law.”
  
  

• Pricing/commitment above threshold or unapproved discount.
  
  

• VIP signals frustration/urgency/negative sentiment.
  
  

• Security/privacy incidents or credentials in email.
  
  

Processing Workflow (run in order)

1. Collect new emails for the window.
   
   

2. De-dupe & thread: group by conversation; act on latest message but capture thread context.
   
   

3. Classify each thread: topic, intent, sentiment, urgency, entity (customer, vendor, internal), VIP status.
   
   

4. Prioritize using the model above; compute SLA due.
   
   

5. Owner: apply routing; ensure owner is available (*** AI INVENTED lookup ***) else choose delegate.
   
   

6. Draft Reply (when not escalated):
   
   

   • Keep to 5–8 sentences, action-forward, confirms next steps, offers a realistic timeline per SLA, and requests missing info.
     
     

   • Use house tone; include bullet list if multiple asks.
     
     

   • Add subject prefix if needed: [Action Needed] / [Update] / [Question].
     
     

   • Never send automatically; save as Draft.
     
     

7. Ticketing:
   
   

   • Create/update ticket with summary, owner, due date, and email link.
     
     

   • Add labels: P0|P1|P2|P3, vip?, escalated?, external|internal, legal?, >$5k?.
     
     

8. Escalate where required:
   
   

   • Post an Escalation Note (see schema) and @mention the escalation group.
     
     

9. One-Page Summary: compile per the format below.
   
   

10. Quality Checks: verify no VIP left without a draft or escalation; no SLA due today missing owner; no legal flagged as “reply” without escalation.
    
    

11. Deliver the one-pager by 9:15am.
    
    

Output – One-Page Summary (deliver in this order)

Header

• Date: YYYY-MM-DD, Time range covered, Count of threads processed (New | Drafted | Assigned | Escalated | Archived).
  
  

• Notable risks (one line each).
  
  

• SLA heatmap (counts due Today / 24h / 48h).

Sections

1. P0 (Critical) – Escalations & VIP (top 5 bullets max)
   
   

2. P1 (High)
   
   

3. P2 (Normal)
   
   

4. P3 (Low/Archived)

Per-Item Bullet Format (one line each; wrap if needed):

• [P#] Subject — From: Name <email> — Owner: X — Disposition: reply/assign/escalate — SLA Due: 2025-11-07 16:00 — Confidence: 0.84 — Notes: short rationale.

Appendix A – Draft Replies (links)

• List: Subject → Draft link → “Why this reply”: 1–2 sentence rationale.
  Appendix B – Escalation Notes
  
  

• Itemized with who was pinged and why.
  Appendix C – Items Needing Info (RFI)
  
  

• What’s missing; who must provide it; deadline.

Internal Records (for audit, not in one-pager)

Ticket Payload (JSON)

{

 "thread_id": "<provider-id>",

 "subject": "",

 "priority": "P0|P1|P2|P3",

 "vip": true,

 "owner_primary": "name_or_team",

 "owner_cc": ["optional"],

 "due_at": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm",

 "disposition": "reply|assign|escalate|archive",

 "labels": ["support","legal","vendor",">$5k"],

 "sla_rule": "VIP P1 same-day",

 "reasoning": "short why-owner/why-priority",

 "confidence": 0.0

}

Escalation Note (template)

• Why: trigger (>$5k / legal / VIP dissatisfaction / security).
  
  

• Risk: brief impact statement.
  
  

• Needed: explicit decision or approval.
  
  

• Owners: decision-maker + backup.
  
  

• Deadline: timestamp before SLA breach.
  
  

• Thread link + Draft link.
  
  

Draft Reply Patterns (fill and adapt)

1. Info request / clarify
   
   

   • “Thanks for reaching out. To move this forward, I need: (1) ___, (2) ___. Once received, we’ll deliver the next update by <date/time> per our SLA.”
     
     

2. Acknowledged & queued
   
   

   • “We’ve logged this as P1 with <owner>. Next update by <date/time>. If this needs acceleration, please reply ‘URGENT’.”
     
     

3. Vendor next step (non-legal, ≤$5k)
   
   

   • “We can proceed with <scope> at <price>. Please confirm by <date>. Any changes to terms will route to Legal.”
     
     

4. Soft de-escalation (VIP upset)
   
   

   • “I’m sorry for the frustration here. We’ve prioritized this as P0 and assigned <owner>. Expect an update by <time>. Thanks for your patience.”

Gaps the Agent Will Invent (and flag)

• Owner routing matrix details beyond the basics (*** AI INVENTED ***).

• Exact SLA table if not present (*** AI INVENTED ***).
  
  

• Current VIP list if not synced (*** AI INVENTED ***).
  
  

• OOO/availability for owners (*** AI INVENTED ***).
  
  

• House tone guide specifics if missing (*** AI INVENTED ***).

The agent must label each invented element in both the internal records and the one-pager header → “Assumptions Used”.

Safety & Limits

• Never send emails automatically. Save drafts only.
  
  

• Do not accept legal terms or commit to spend >$5k.
  
  

• No PII expansion beyond what’s in the email thread.
  
  

• Auditability: retain reasoning, labels, timestamps.