What would you actually want an AI agent to do in your business?
I’ve been a software developer for years, and over the last few months I’ve been spending a lot of time on AI engineering, agents, RAG, tool calling, LangGraph, memory, orchestration, etc.
I already built a fairly generic agent/chatbot engine, and now I’m trying to figure out what real product to build around it.
I have some ideas around customer support, handling emails, churn interviews, escalation when the agent gets stuck, and things like that.
But I’d rather not anchor on my own ideas.
If you run a product or company, what repetitive or annoying workflow would you actually trust an AI agent to handle?
I’m mainly looking for real pain points. I’d rather find something genuinely useful than spend months building something technically interesting that nobody needs.
Thanks in advance
I’d almost reverse the question.
Instead of starting with 'what would I trust an agent to do?' I’d first map the recurring work in the business: what consumes disproportionate time, what regularly gets delayed or forgotten, where mistakes are expensive, which work crosses multiple systems, where human judgement enters the process etc.
Then look for the smallest useful piece that can be delegated safely.
A supplier to invoice process is a simple example.... reading the invoice, checking details, matching records and preparing the payment may all be good candidates long before I’d let the system actually move any real money.
That feels like a better path to adoption than choosing a category like 'email agent' first and then looking for things for it to do.
I’d be interested to know whether you’re looking for one narrow workflow to productise, or whether you still want the underlying engine to remain fairly general... ?
Love this angle. Building Xstream4K right now so this hits close to home — what made you look into it in the first place?
One overlooked pain is evaluating behavior after the happy path ends. A task agent can look excellent in a demo, then lose context when another person interrupts, a second agent disagrees, or the environment changes mid-run. I would pay attention to teams that already have an agent but no realistic place to observe those messy interactions before giving it consequential tools.
I’d look for a workflow where “the agent handled it” has a measurable business outcome, not just saved time. What repetitive task currently creates a visible cost when it’s delayed, missed, or handled inconsistently?
The half I trust an agent with is reading: which threads on X are worth a reply today, and a first draft. The half I do not trust it with is pressing send.
Numbers from my own account this week: my original posts sat at 17–205 views. One reply under someone else's tweet is at 2,934 views and sent 4 people to my profile. Finding the right thread mattered more than writing, and finding is the hour a day nobody wants.
I built a tool that does that finding-and-drafting half. It stops at the draft on purpose. Unsolicited auto-replies are how accounts get banned.
If you build for founders, build the queue and the judgment call, not the send button. Which step in your own week would you let an agent read but not act on?