AI expertise helps identify points where one intervention affects the entire process. Good candidates include work involving:
- High volumes of documents or messages
- Repetitive classification or extraction
- Similar decisions made repeatedly
- Time-consuming research
- Drafting from known information
- Comparison against rules, policies or standards
- Large numbers of routine cases with a small number of exceptions
The opportunity can be narrower and more specific than “automate the whole department.”
Examples #
1. Fix the decision point, not every task #
A property insurer receives thousands of claims each month. AI could help staff read documents, summarise emails and draft responses, but the real leverage point is the first decision: which claims are routine and which require investigation?
By using AI to assess the claim at intake, straightforward cases can move directly to settlement while suspicious, incomplete or high-value claims go to specialists.
Moment of leverage: the initial triage decision. Disproportionate gain: faster payouts, fewer unnecessary reviews and more specialist time focused on genuine risk.
2. Capture information once, at the source #
A sales team records customer calls, writes follow-up emails, updates the CRM and then briefs delivery teams. AI tools could make each of those tasks faster, but the strongest leverage point is the call itself.
AI captures the conversation once, identifies actions, updates the CRM, drafts the follow-up and creates the internal handover.
Moment of leverage: the point where information first enters the business. Disproportionate gain: several downstream tasks disappear, data becomes more accurate and handovers happen immediately.
The best leverage points are usually where one decision, handoff or piece of information affects everything that follows.
