The Closing Guide Series

Where to Add AI After Mapping Your Processes

The placement framework for deciding where AI helps and where it doesn't across your 4 departments.

The Reframe

AI is a multiplier. If your process is a 2, AI makes it a 4. If it's an 8, AI makes it a 16.

“The businesses that get value from AI mapped their processes first. The ones that wasted money on AI subscriptions didn't. The order matters more than the tool.”

Most businesses add AI backwards. They buy a tool, try to fit it into their workflow, and abandon it six weeks later because nobody knows where it goes. The tool was fine. The process underneath was unclear.

When you map your processes first, you can see exactly where AI fits. The repetitive step that takes 2 hours a week? AI. The creative decision that requires context and judgment? Human. The handoff notification that gets forgotten? AI. The client conversation that builds trust? Human.

The framework is simple: look at each step in your documented process, ask whether it's repetitive and rule-based or variable and judgment-based. AI handles the first category. Your team handles the second. The documented process is what makes this decision clear.

The Framework

The AI placement framework

Category 1: Automate (AI does it)

Steps that are repetitive, rule-based, and high-volume. Follow-up reminders, first-draft emails, data entry, ticket triage, scheduling, report generation. These steps have clear inputs and predictable outputs. AI handles them with minimal oversight.

Category 2: Assist (AI drafts, human reviews)

Steps that benefit from AI speed but need human judgment before execution. Proposal drafts, content adaptations, customer response drafts, meeting summaries. AI produces the first version. Your team edits and approves.

Category 3: Stay human

Steps that require empathy, context, or relationship-building. Sales conversations, escalated customer complaints, hiring decisions, strategic planning. AI can prepare you for these moments (research, summaries), but the conversation stays human.

How to decide

For each step in your mapped process, ask: (1) Does this happen the same way every time? (2) Is there a clear right answer? (3) Would the customer know or care if AI did it? If yes to all three, automate. If yes to the first two, assist. If no to any, keep it human.

Take Action

Start here

  1. 1
    Take one mapped process and label every step. Go through each step in your most documented workflow. Write 'automate,' 'assist,' or 'human' next to each one. This gives you your AI placement map for that workflow.
  2. 2
    Pick one 'automate' step and implement it this week. The smallest, most repetitive step with the clearest rules. Set up the AI automation, test it for a week, and measure the time saved.
  3. 3
    Cancel any AI tool that doesn't map to a documented process. If you can't point to a specific step in a specific process where the tool fits, it's not ready. Cancel it, save the money, and revisit after you've mapped the process it's supposed to improve.

Ready to map your processes?

Work with me

3 months per department. Two of your people train alongside me weekly while we map processes, build SOPs, and install AI side by side. $22,500 per department. Retainer continues at $20,000 per 3 months.

See how it works →