If you can communicate, you can create AI agents
In this article
Building AI agents isn't about IT development - it's about communication. Learn how procurement managers and HR teams create AI agents that save 95% of their time."
Anyone Can Create AI Agents (Yes, Including You)
When people hear the words AI agents, they think it's something complicated, advanced and technical that requires a developer or IT person.
After working with dozens of businesses to create AI agents over the past five months, I can tell you that's actually backwards. The best AI agent builders I've worked with have been procurement specialists, HR managers, and marketing professionals. People who are experts in their fields, and not developers.
The Real Skill You Need? The Ability to Explain Things
Think about the last time you trained a new team member. You didn't need to understand how neurons work or how their brain processes information. You just needed to clearly explain the context and what they should do.
Building an AI agent works exactly the same way. At least at Abundly, where you create agents by chatting with them and telling them what they should do, and nowadays also on platforms like ChatGPT.
You literally just write/talk to it. No coding or technical knowledge. Just clear communication about what you want done.
Your AI Agent is Like a Smart Intern
Here's the mental model that clicks for most people: imagine you just hired a recent university grad. They look every single course at university, so they're super knowledgeable. On top of that, they have that eagerness to take on (and often overdo) any task that gets thrown their way. But they have zero context about your specific business, your processes, or what "good" looks like in your world.
That's your AI agent.
So the typical first output is going to be generic and so-so. And just like with that new grad, when the first output you get isn't amazing, the solution isn't that the new intern simply sucks, but rather to give more feedback and guidance.
If you invest in your AI agent/intern, you get good results
Let me share a real example. A procurement specialist wanted an agent to review contracts against their company templates. Here's how it evolved:
First attempt: "Review these contracts and suggest improvements based on our 6 templates."
- Result: The agent gave some good suggestions, but also flagged a lot of things that didn't apply. It was maybe 60% there.
Second iteration: "Actually, use template 1-2-3 for large-scale contracts and template 4-5-6 for small-scale service contracts."
- Result: Much better! But it was being too rigid about the template structure. So maybe 80% there.
Final version (95% there): "It's okay if the document doesn't follow the template exactly, as long as any deviations are clearly noted."
- Result: An agent that now reviews contracts consistently and saves 2 hours per review.
Notice what happened? No coding. No technical skills. Just clarifying the instructions to the agent, exactly like how you'd add on guidance to a human new colleague.
Look For the "Boring Tasks"
Here's an easy way of finding great use cases for AI agents: look for the tasks that make you go "ugh, not this again". And that preferably doesn't need access to a lot of internal systems. Like:
- The proposals you customize slightly for each client
- The documents you review against the same criteria every time
- The screening process you run on every new lead
One of our clients built an agent that screens potential acquisition targets. What used to take months now takes hours - with 95% effective time savings. And the bonus: the agent screens with higher quality and consistency than the humans used to, because the humans have a lot of individual biases. Now these employees freed up time to spend on higher level work.
We recently built an agent internally for a job that nobody wanted - an agent that maintains and builds out our FAQ. Every time we answer a support question, the agent automatically adds it to our knowledge base. Boring work? Absolutely. Valuable? Absolutely.
Honestly, Just Try It
The biggest barrier isn't technical skill. It's the willingness to take that first step.
People worry they'll break something, or look foolish, or waste time. But building an agent is more like coaching an intern than programming a computer. You tell the intern to do something, see the results, give more feedback, and improve.
Honestly, if you're interested in this, just try it. Get a free trial on our platform or try agents on ChatGPT (although I personally find that slow).
The Bottom Line
If you have a task that's boring, repetitive and that you'd rather not do, chances are that's a decent AI agent use case. If it doesn't require integrations with a bunch of systems, you've likely hit jackpot on a great first agent to create.
And if you can explain to someone else how to do that task? Congratulations. You have all the skills you need.
Just try it.
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Want to see how easy it is to build your first AI agent? Check out our videos on Abundly.ai - where creating agents is as simple as having a conversation.
