Answer

What is the very first step of an AI automation project?

A one-hour process walkthrough, not a demo. We follow one piece of work from the moment it arrives to the moment it is finished, writing down every click, every decision and every exception. That walkthrough produces the scope, the baseline hours and a go-live date in one of the 1–14, 15–35 or 36+ day bands.

Last updated: 22 September 2026

What we look for during the walkthrough

Three things decide the design: where the work arrives from, what a person has to know in order to decide, and where the result has to end up. Everything else is detail. If the deciding knowledge lives only in someone's head, that becomes the first document we write together.

What you should bring

Nothing prepared in advance is required, but three things make the session twice as useful: real examples of the work, the person who actually does it, and a rough count of how often it happens.

01Ten real examples, including two that went wrong
02The colleague who handles the process daily
03A list of the systems the work passes through

What comes out of it

A written scope with what the automation will and will not do, what happens when it is unsure, who approves, and the measurable baseline. You get an answer within one working day, and nothing is built before you have agreed to that document.

Asked next

Do we have to sign anything for the walkthrough?

No contract is needed for the first conversation. If we look at real customer data, we sign a confidentiality agreement before you show anything.

What if we have twenty processes to fix?

We still walk through one, because the first build creates the connections the others reuse. The remaining nineteen get ranked by hours and difficulty in the same session.