Choosing your first AI workflow project

Look for a task that happens often, takes meaningful staff time, and has a result someone can review. Describe where the work starts, what information people use, and what a finished result looks like.

For example, a team might test drafting an internal summary from approved service notes, with a person checking every draft. This is an illustrative pilot, not a SwiftSource client result.

First ask whether a template, better search, or rules-based automation would solve the problem. AI is a candidate when interpreting or generating varied content is part of the work.

• Name the person responsible for the workflow and the people doing it today.
• Choose a narrow starting point with manageable consequences when an output is wrong.

Review a representative sample of completed work. Include awkward cases as well as straightforward ones so the pilot is not judged only on easy examples.

• Volume: how many items arrive each week?
• Effort: how much staff time does each item need, including review and corrections?
• Quality: what makes an output acceptable, and how often is work returned?
• Delay: where does work wait, and would faster drafting actually reduce that wait?

Identify the source systems, who owns them, and whether the information is current and usable. Confirm which data may be processed by the proposed tools before sharing samples. A pilot should use only the access and data it needs.

• List source documents, required fields, and any missing or inconsistent information.
• Identify integration options and who can authorize access.
• Agree on storage, retention, and access boundaries with the relevant owners.

Write down the input, expected output, test sample, reviewer, and duration. Keep human review in the workflow and decide how uncertain or incomplete results return to the existing process.

• Agree on a quality threshold and a target for staff time saved, including review effort.
• Include processing costs, maintenance effort, and failed cases in the evaluation.
• Keep external messages and changes to business records behind an explicit approval step during the pilot.

Compare the pilot with the baseline. Continue only if the result is useful enough for the people doing the work and the operating cost is justified. Document what failed, who will maintain it, and how to return to the previous process. A narrower scope or a decision to stop can be a useful outcome.