Skip to content
Astorna

For operations

Where does the work go when AI cannot handle the case?

Standard cases may account for most of the volume. Exceptions are where the workflow becomes unpredictable, expensive, and dependent on experience.

A demonstration may show how quickly AI handles the standard case. Operations still has to own the whole queue: missing documents, awkward handoffs, second signatures, uncertain outputs, and the case that needs the person who has been here nine years.

If AI cannot handle those cases, where will they go? Will it remove work from your team, or create another queue that people must review, correct, and explain?

First check if this workshop is suitable for you.

Book a free 15-minute call

What would need to be true for the work to actually decrease?

Before changing the workflow, could you answer:

  • What proportion of cases could AI complete without review?
  • Which tasks would disappear, and which would become checking or correction?
  • Where would incomplete or uncertain cases go?
  • Who would own the exception queue and decide when a case needs to be escalated?
  • What happens to turnaround time when exception volume rises?
  • Would experienced people become the final bottleneck?
  • What happens when the AI or its provider is unavailable?
  • What baseline would show that total work decreased without harming quality?

What this workshop helps you decide

Whether AI would remove enough work to justify the checking, exception handling, and support it would create, and which part of the workflow is narrow enough to test.

In a private ninety-minute workshop, we first cover the AI concepts and control questions relevant to operations. Then we examine one workflow as it actually runs: the standard path, handoffs, exceptions, judgement calls, and the fallback when a case does not fit.

Within two working days, you receive a one-page AI Workflow Brief. It records where AI may enter, what work may disappear, what new work may be created, how exceptions would be handled, who would own the workflow, what remains unresolved, and the smallest sensible next step.

What a better workflow would look like

A useful change does not simply make the standard case faster. It reduces the total work, keeps exceptions visible, and gives the team a fallback it can operate.

The team should know which cases can proceed, where exceptions go, when human judgement is required, who owns the queue, and what happens when the AI is uncertain or unavailable.

Sometimes only one narrow step is worth changing. Sometimes the workflow should be left alone.

Who this is for

  • Operations leaders, team managers, and process owners responsible for throughput, quality, or service
  • People who understand one workflow beyond what the written procedure says
  • Firms where AI has been proposed without testing its effect on exceptions, handoffs, and ownership
  • Teams that want to understand the operational consequences before choosing a system or changing the process

How it works

  1. Start with a free 15-minute call

    Tell me briefly which workflow you have in mind. The call is simply to see whether the workshop is likely to be useful. It may not be.

    Book a free 15-minute call

    Prefer email? Write to hossein@initialblock.com.

  2. Book the workshop

    If the workshop fits, you will receive a private booking link to choose a date and time that suits you, and a few questions that help both of us prepare.

    Price
    €400
    paid when booking
    Workshop
    90 minutes
    Online, at your office, or at ours. You choose.

  3. Use the brief to decide

    Within two working days, you receive a one-page AI Workflow Brief. It records the preliminary assessment, what remains unresolved, and the smallest sensible next step.

    On whether AI would reduce the total work in the workflow, the answer may be yes, no, or not yet.

What would you want the person examining your workflow to understand?

AI, certainly. But also what the work looks like on an ordinary day: the handoffs, the exceptions, the judgement calls, and the things people do because the written process does not cover the case in front of them.

I have spent more than fifteen years building technology. For the past nine, I have been co-founder of Xeco Labs, where we build operational infrastructure for financial firms. I also have a master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam.

I have also had to live with those systems as firms grew and workflows changed underneath them. That is why I look at both sides: what the model can do, and what your team would have to review, correct, support, and live with after it is introduced.

Some of the firms I have worked with through Xeco Labs

Index People, AssetCare, Carbon Equity, Bits of Stock, OAKK Capital Partners, RegLab.

If that sounds like the perspective you would want in the room, start with the free call.

Fifteen minutes to find out whether the workshop is likely to be useful for your workflow.

Book a free 15-minute call