The hire you keep deciding not to make
Most owners we talk to have had the same conversation with themselves for about eighteen months. The admin work has outgrown the person doing it. A hire would fix it. The hire costs more than the problem appears to, so the decision gets deferred, and the owner absorbs the difference by working evenings.
The numbers are worth stating plainly, because the deferral is usually rational. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median wage for secretaries and administrative assistants at a level that works out to roughly $4,350 a month once payroll taxes are added, and about $5,640 a month once benefits are in at the BLS-reported average of around 30% of total compensation. An office manager runs higher again — roughly $5,680 to $7,370 a month.
And that is the easy part of the cost. The rest is recruiting time, an interview process, a ramp period where they are learning your systems on your payroll, and the risk that they leave in month four and the knowledge leaves with them.
An AI worker is not a better human. It is a different answer to the same question: who is going to do this work every day without being asked.
Wondering whether your role is one an AI worker could actually cover?
Book a free 30-minute call →What an AI worker actually is
The term gets used loosely, so here is our definition, which is also what we build.
A defined role. Not "an AI that helps with admin" but a specific seat: the one who chases receivables, or the one who handles inbound enquiries from first touch to booked appointment. If you would have to write a job description for it, it is a worker. If you would write a checklist, it is an automation.
Access to the systems that role needs. Real credentials, real permissions, scoped deliberately — the same way you would set up a new employee, and no broader.
Instructions built from how you actually operate. Your terms, your tone, your exceptions, your rules about what gets a discount and what never does. This is the part that takes the longest and it is the part that makes the difference between something useful and something embarrassing.
An explicit boundary. What it may decide alone. What it must route to a human. What it must never do under any circumstances. Written down, not implied.
A record. Every action logged, so you can audit it, correct it, and eventually stop checking it.
That last pair is what separates a worker you can trust from a chatbot you cannot. A worker that cannot escalate is a liability. A worker that escalates everything is a nuisance. Getting that line right for your business is most of the job.
Worker or system — which do you need?
We sell both, and we will tell you on the call which one your problem actually is. Buying the wrong one is expensive in a way that is hard to see until months later.
You need AI System Building when the work is a process. It happens the same way every time, the rules are knowable, and the value is in it happening reliably without anyone remembering. Invoice follow-up, appointment reminders, weekly reporting. Cheaper, faster to payback, and where most businesses should start.
You need an AI worker when the work is a role. There is judgment in it. The right action depends on context. A person currently holds this seat, or would if you could afford one, and their day is not describable as a single flowchart.
The honest guidance: most small businesses should automate two or three processes before building a worker. The payback is faster and it teaches us how your business actually behaves, which makes the worker better when you do build one.
The roles we build most often
The receivables clerk. Watches what is owed, chases on a schedule, escalates tone appropriately, stops the moment payment lands, and flags the accounts that need a human phone call rather than another email. The most common first worker because the return is measurable in cash.
The intake coordinator. Takes an enquiry from first contact through qualification to a booked slot, asking the questions your best salesperson would ask and routing anything unusual to a person.
The scheduler. Owns the calendar — booking, confirming, reminding, rebooking cancellations and filling the holes those cancellations leave.
The back-office administrator. The one who handles the paperwork nobody has time for: filing, categorising, chasing missing documents, keeping records where they are supposed to be.
Something specific to your trade. Roles that only exist in your kind of business. We build those, and it is not an upsell — it is the same engagement. Our catalogue of 69 helpers is what we have already built, not the limit of what we will.
Live in 14 days, or that month is free.
No notice period. No ramp on your payroll. No resignation in month four.
Book My Free Call →What the build includes
Role definition. We write the job description with you, including the boundary and the escalation rules. Owners often say this is the first time the role has been defined at all.
Knowledge capture. We get what is in your head into the worker — the exceptions, the accounts that get treated differently, the phrasing you would never use.
Real integrations. OAuth and API connections into your live systems, built and tested by us, scoped to what the role needs.
A supervised first fortnight. We watch every action and correct as it meets real cases, so the mistakes happen while someone is looking.
Ongoing operation. We run it. We monitor it. When an API changes or your process shifts, we adjust it. That is inside the monthly fee, not a change order.
A named human on your account who knows your business and answers when you write.
What it costs, and the guarantee
An AI worker sits inside the AI Office Manager plan at $697/mo or the AI Back Office at $1,497/mo, plus a one-time build fee quoted on the call once we know the role. Month to month, cancel with 30 days notice, no annual contract.
Against $4,350–$5,640 a month for the admin hire, or $5,680–$7,370 for an office manager. We are not going to pretend the comparison is like for like — a person brings judgment, relationships and accountability that software does not. But for the repetitive core of the role, which is most of the hours, the comparison is fair.
The guarantee: if your first AI worker is not live within 14 days of signing and your setup fee clearing, that month’s plan fee is waived — credited in full on your first invoice, no claim required. The clock pauses only while we wait on system access or a decision from you, and we tell you in writing when it does. The one-time build fee is not covered, because that work has been done. Full terms are on our terms page.
Proof, and what it does not prove
Taika Translations is our sister company, a 12-person language services agency. We ran AI across their production, finance, sales and marketing. Their finance team got back roughly 40 hours a week, and the business absorbed growth from about $1M to $30M in contract awards over three years without adding administrative headcount to cope with it.
The caveats, stated rather than buried: they are our sister company, so access and patience were unusually good, and much of that contract growth came from the proposal work we also do rather than from automation. What the AI is genuinely responsible for is the absence of a proportional hiring wave. The fuller version is on our case studies page.
This is probably not a fit if…
The role is mostly relationships. If the job is being trusted by your top twenty accounts, do not put an AI in that seat. Automate the admin around that person instead so they can spend more time being trusted.
You have not automated anything yet. Start with a system. Faster payback, less to get wrong, and it makes the eventual worker better.
You want it to answer the phone. We do not provide phone answering or an AI receptionist. That is a live answering service, and it is a real purchase — just not from us.
You want to eliminate a person this quarter to hit a number. We are not the right partner for that, and honestly the results are usually poor. This works best as a way to avoid a hire you cannot afford, or to give someone back the job they were hired to do.
If none of those apply, book a free 30-minute call. Bring the role you keep almost hiring for and we will tell you honestly whether it is coverable.