AI, Agents, and the Death of the Back Office
Tax returns, admin, manual data entry — most of it can already be automated. With AI agents, the speed is genuinely absurd.
Most SMEs are still running their back office the way they did in 2015. Spreadsheets, manual data entry, week-long tax returns, three different tools that don't talk to each other.
What's changed in the last twelve months isn't subtle. AI agents can read documents, file paperwork, reconcile accounts, draft replies, schedule, follow up, and route exceptions to a human. The speed is genuinely absurd compared to the manual version.
What I want to help businesses do: cut the admin tax. Spend less time on tax returns, expense chasing, and copy-paste work. Spend more time selling more of the thing you're actually good at.
I'm spending time now on the security side of this too — because the moment you let an agent touch real data, the question stops being 'can it do it?' and becomes 'who's watching it?'
More on this as I build it.
What to do next
- Write down the outcome you need before choosing features.
- Ask for scope, ownership and ongoing costs in writing.
- Compare the smallest useful version, not an unlimited wish list.