Before We Chase AI, Let's Master the Basics: The Overlooked Goldmine of Simple Automation
While leading engineering teams through cycles of innovation, I've witnessed firsthand the incredible hype and potential around Artificial Intelligence. From generative AI creating new content to predictive AI optimizing complex systems, the allure is undeniable. Boards are asking about it, leadership is pushing for it, and every tech company is scrambling to integrate it. But amidst this excitement, I find myself asking a critical question:Are we running before we can walk?
In my experience, many organizations overlook the low-hanging fruit of simple automation that can yield immediate productivity gains. Before diving headfirst into complex AI implementations, it's essential to assess whether existing processes can be streamlined with basic automation tools.
The hidden drudgery: Examples of simple automation goldmines
Let's be brutally honest. How many of these sound familiar within your own organization?
The Data Janitor (Sales & Marketing Operations):
- Manual Task: A marketing operations specialist manually downloads lead lists from various campaign platforms, cleans them in a spreadsheet (removing duplicates, standardizing formats), and then uploads them to the CRM. This often happens daily or weekly.
- Simple Automation: Integrate campaign platforms directly with the CRM using APIs or low-code automation tools like Zapier or n8n. Set up rules for de-duplication and data standardization upon ingestion.
- Impact: Frees up hours of tedious work, ensures real-time data accuracy, and allows the specialist to focus on campaign strategy and analysis.
The report runner (Finance & Business Intelligence):
- Manual Task: A finance analyst spends the first few hours of every Monday morning downloading data from ERP systems, consolidating it into a master spreadsheet, and then generating weekly performance reports that are distributed via email.
- Simple Automation: Schedule automated data extracts from the ERP, use a scripting language (Python, JavaScript) or a BI tool's automation features to consolidate and transform the data, and automatically generate and distribute reports via email or a dashboard update.
- Impact: Eliminates repetitive data handling, reduces human error, and provides timely insights without manual effort.
The onboarding/offboarding bureaucrat (HR & IT Operations):
- Manual Task: When a new employee joins, HR manually sends emails to IT for account creation, to facilities for desk setup, to procurement for equipment orders, and then tracks each step in a spreadsheet.
- Simple Automation: Implement an HRIS-triggered workflow that automatically initiates tickets in IT service management (ITSM) systems, notifies facilities, triggers equipment orders in procurement, and sends automated welcome emails to the new hire with necessary information.
- Impact: Streamlines a critical process, ensures a smooth new hire experience, and significantly reduces the administrative burden on HR and IT.
The Bug Triage Sorter (Engineering & Product Management):
- Manual Task: A product manager or engineering lead spends an hour each day sifting through incoming bug reports, manually assigning priorities, categorizing them, and routing them to the correct team based on keywords or components.
- Simple Automation: Configure an issue tracking system (Jira, GitHub Issues) with automation rules. Use keywords, component fields, or even simple regex to automatically assign initial priorities, labels, and assignees.
- Impact: Accelerates the bug fixing process, ensures consistent triage, and allows leads to focus on strategic problem-solving rather than manual routing.
Why this matters more than ever
Investing in these "boring" automations yields immediate, tangible benefits:
- Increased Productivity: Your skilled employees can finally focus on high-value, creative, and strategic work.
- Reduced Costs: Less time spent on manual tasks means more efficient resource allocation.
- Improved Morale: No one enjoys monotonous, repetitive work. Automation frees people up for more engaging challenges.
- Better Data Quality: Automated processes are less prone to human error, leading to more reliable data.
- A Stronger Foundation for AI: Clean, well-structured, and efficiently managed data from these automated processes is the fuel that truly makes AI effective. Trying to layer AI on top of chaotic, manually managed data is like building a skyscraper on quicksand.
Some workflow automation partners to consider
- Zapier: Market leader in the no-code, cloud-based workflow automation space. It's famous for its ease of use and vast ecosystem of integrations.
- n8n: Open-source workflow automation platform that caters to more technical users who need flexibility, custom logic, and control over their data..
- Microsoft Power Automate: Ideal for organizations using Microsoft 365.
- OpenAI AgentKit: Newest wave of automation focused on AI Agents and large language models (LLMs). It's a suite of tools for building, deploying, and optimizing AI agents.
All these platforms are ready to be used for your workflow automation, as well as can provide the power of Agentic AI to your process workflows. So, the automations that you build, can be easily integrated with power of LLMs and best Agentic Models just by a few clicks.
My call to action
Before we get swept away by the siren call of AI, let's take a strategic pause. Empower our teams to identify these low-hanging fruit automations. Invest in low-code/no-code platforms, API integrations, and simple scripting.
Let's ensure our operational house is in order. Let's free our brilliant minds from the mundane. Once we've mastered these foundational efficiencies, then we'll be truly ready to harness the transformative power of AI, not as a desperate fix, but as a strategic accelerator built on a solid, automated foundation.