245 hours a week saved across our build clients, attributed line by line to the workflows the agents now run. Around 120 a week at marketing agency MKTG, across research, copywriting and reporting. 80 a week at a global container services company, across customer service, quoting and invoice reconciliation. 45 a week at Ark Bathrooms, on quoting. Counted weekly, attributed per workflow.
This is the realism number. Not “AI replaces your team”. The hours come back as 50 to 80% of a named workflow, handled by an agent that knows what it is allowed to do and escalates the rest with the context attached. The person who prices the unusual job still prices it. The agent owns the slice of the queue that does not need them.
What drives the result
Process mapping first. The Audit puts a Business Analyst in front of the people doing the work: the quoting desk, the enquiry queue, the team running the client-reporting cycle, or the person chasing suppliers for the third time this week. Handoff times are observed, not estimated. The hours-back number per workflow comes out of that study, not a pitch deck.
The agents themselves are bounded. Defined inputs, defined outputs, and a confidence threshold below which they hand the case to a person with reasoning attached. Wired into the system of record, not standing next to it as a chatbot. Every job the agent is permitted to do is covered by quality tests, so the routine cases get owned and exceptions route cleanly.
Inside the boundary the agent runs at a fraction of the operator’s time. Outside, it does not run at all. That distinction is the difference between recovered hours that hold for a year and a vendor statistic that evaporates by month 3.
What an engagement looks like
The Audit ranks candidate workflows by hours back per build dollar in 1 to 3 weeks. Custom AI Agent builds run 7 to 17 weeks after scope is signed. The number we commit to at handover is measured hours saved per workflow, counted from the first live week.
What we don’t promise
The hours come back as flexibility, not headcount cuts. The CFO models them as FTE-equivalents. The COO sees them as the operator week finally being spent on judgment work. The org has to decide which view it is operating against before the first agent ships, because that decision changes the change-management plan.
Book a free consultation and you will see where the hours are likely to come back, with a price next to every line in the Audit document.