Before automating, fix the handoff.

Before adding AI, I’d ask the next person in the process what they still have to chase.

Take a hypothetical service business. A sale is marked closed, but delivery receives a name and a PDF. The date was confirmed in a message. An exception was agreed on a call. Nobody has checked whether the deposit arrived.

I wouldn’t ask a model to guess any of that.

First, I’d define what has to be passed on: approved scope, dates, payment status, any promises outside the standard offer, and the next person responsible. Anything missing should stay visibly unconfirmed.

Then I’d test the handoff. Can the next person start without going back to reconstruct the story? Can they send it back when something essential is missing?

Only after that would I choose what to automate.

Perhaps an AI step could extract information from approved records, subject to checking. Perhaps a structured form and a notification would do the job. OpenAI · Evaluation best practices.

Either way, “sent” shouldn’t count as “handed over.” The next person needs enough information to do the work.

What does your team still have to ask after a task has supposedly been passed on?