AI is genuinely useful. It's also the most over-applied technology of the moment. The honest answer to 'should we use AI here?' is often 'no — a simpler automation will do it more reliably and for less.'
Here's the test I actually use with clients.
AI earns its place when the work is unstructured and repetitive
If your team spends hours reading, summarizing, classifying, or drafting from messy inputs — documents, emails, free-text notes — that's where AI shines. It turns unstructured information into something usable, with a human reviewing the result.
AI is the wrong tool when the rules are clear
If a process follows definite rules — 'when X happens, do Y' — you don't want a probabilistic model making that call. You want plain automation that does the same thing every time. It's cheaper, faster, and easier to trust.
The rule of thumb
Use AI where judgment over messy information is the bottleneck, and keep a human in the loop for anything that matters. Use ordinary automation everywhere the rules are already clear. The best systems use both — each for what it's actually good at.