Insights · AI
AI agents for operations
An AI agent is software that carries out a task across several steps — reading, deciding and acting in your systems — instead of just answering a question. In operations, the good uses are the high-volume, well-defined jobs that eat your team's day. The build itself: From 5,000 euro, excl. VAT, plus AI usage at cost. Here's where they help, what they cost, and how to start small.
What an agent actually does
A chatbot answers a question. An agent does a job. It reads an incoming email or document, pulls out what matters, checks it against your data, takes the next step in the right system, and flags anything it's unsure about for a person. The model supplies the judgement; the software around it supplies the guardrails, the access to your tools, and the record of what happened.
Where they earn their keep
- Triaging and routing incoming requests — support tickets, orders, applications.
- Lifting data out of documents (invoices, PDFs, forms) and into your systems.
- Drafting first-pass replies and summaries for a person to approve.
- Reconciling records between two systems and surfacing the mismatches.
- Watching for exceptions and alerting someone before they become problems.
The pattern is always the same: high volume, clear rules, a bit of judgement, and a human on the important decisions.
What they cost
Agents are built like any other custom software — Small, Medium or Large, paid on delivery or leased to own over 12, 24 or 36 months. The one difference is the AI usage itself, which is billed to you at cost on top of the build and estimated in your quote, because it scales with how much the agent does. See the full numbers on the AI agents page, or compare sizes in what custom software costs.
Start with a scan, not a leap
You don't have to commit to a build to find out if an agent is worth it. An AI scan is three to five days that map where agents would actually pay off in your operation and what it would take to get there. If you go ahead with a build within 90 days of the report, the scan fee comes off the project cost. It's the cheapest way to replace a hunch with a plan.