01
What it looks like
AI assists humans making recurring decisions: pricing, credit, hiring, prioritization, triage. The model surfaces relevant context and a recommended call. The human decides.
Framework 05
Decision Support, Knowledge Management & Process Discovery
The three highest-ROI starting points for most operating businesses under $25M.
Why these three
These workflow categories share three traits: bounded scope, abundant training data inside the company, and clear human gates. That combination is what makes AI work.
Decision Support
02
Where it pays back
Speed of decision, consistency across reviewers, documentation of rationale, and reduced management interruption.
03
Anti-pattern
Letting the AI make the decision autonomously before the workflow has demonstrated reliability.
Knowledge Management
01
What it looks like
AI-powered retrieval over policies, contracts, runbooks, customer history, and past projects. Employees ask, the AI answers with citations.
02
Where it pays back
Onboarding speed, reduced senior-to-junior interruptions, and consistency of customer responses.
03
Anti-pattern
Pointing AI at a document graveyard. Knowledge management amplifies the quality that exists.
Process Discovery
01
What it looks like
AI analyzes tickets, emails, transactions, and system logs to surface bottlenecks, exception patterns, and undocumented routes humans have invented.
02
Where it pays back
Identifies the highest-friction workflows before automation is built. Frequently changes which AI projects get funded.
03
Anti-pattern
Treating process discovery as a one-time audit instead of an ongoing input to optimization.
Most failed AI projects skipped one of these three and went straight to a flashier use case. The boring categories are where the value is.
