Chatbot, AI agent or automation? At Bits & Bots we start with the problem, not with the word
Within a few months a business owner can get three proposals: a chatbot for the website, an AI agent for email, an automation for invoicing. Three different words, three suppliers, and usually the same question left unanswered: do I really need all this?
The three words, in thirty seconds
The vocabulary around AI is sometimes there to impress rather than to help. Here is how we work at Bits & Bots: first we look at what is eating up your time, then we pick the simplest tool that solves it.
| Tool | What it does | Example | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automation | Applies fixed rules, without getting them wrong | An invoice stays unpaid for 15 days and the reminder goes out by itself | It understands nothing, it just executes |
| Chatbot | Answers questions | Opening hours, parking, available appointment slots | It tells people things, it does not reach into your systems |
| AI agent | Understands a request and prepares an action | Sorts incoming email, drafts a reply | It does not decide on its own, it suggests |
And what about ‘AI’ in all this? It is not a product in its own right, it is an ingredient. An automation may contain some, or none. You do not need ‘AI’ to save time. You need one thing: the right job gone from your week.
How we choose, in practice
When we run the diagnostic, we do not ask you which tool you want. We look at three things.
- Does the job follow clear rules? Then an automation will do. It is the most reliable, the cheapest and the easiest to keep running. That is always where we start.
- Does the same question keep coming up? Then a well-set-up chatbot does the job, provided the answers are your own and not those of some off-the-shelf model.
- Do you have to understand requests that are worded differently every time? That is the only case where an AI agent is worth it. And a person always approves before anything goes out or is decided.
That order is no accident. The more ‘intelligent’ the tool, the more it costs to build, to monitor and to fix. We only propose an AI agent when the other two routes are not enough.
When we tell you not to automate
It is the part of our work we talk about least, and yet it comes up often. In these cases automating makes no sense.
- The job comes round less than once a month. The time spent setting it up never pays for itself.
- The process is not clear. Automate a mess and all you get is a faster mess. Order has to come first, sometimes without us.
- The software you already have can do it. A lot of industry software has features nobody has ever switched on. It happens more often than people think.
- The problem is a human one, not a technical one. A process that gets stuck because two departments do not talk to each other cannot be fixed with a workflow.
What stays the same, whatever the tool
Whether we build a simple automation or an agent that can do more, four principles stay the same.
- The decision stays with you. Our systems prepare, sort and suggest. They do not take the decision out of your hands.
- You get documentation you can read, written for somebody who is not a developer.
- Your data stays in Europe and is never used to train somebody else’s model. Just one piece of our infrastructure still runs on an American server, because there is still no European alternative.
- The system belongs to you. If you end the arrangement, you take it with you.
In practice
We have over 500 workflows already built, which we tailor to your business rather than starting from scratch each time. Setting up a solution takes between two and six weeks depending on the project. Around twenty firms work with us at the moment, in property, the trades, events, hospitality and industry.
If you do not know which of the three words fits your situation, that is exactly what the intro call is for. And we will tell you if there is nothing to build.
Which of the three fits your situation?
A 45-minute intro call, free and with no obligation. We look at what is eating up your time and tell you which tool fits, or that there is nothing to build.