What Could an AI Agent Do for Your Organisation?
AI Agents Are Coming to Your Workday.
What Will You Ask Yours to Do?
There has been plenty of talk about AI agents. But while many people have heard the term, far fewer know what an AI agent actually is - or what they might ask one to do on Monday morning.
That is changing quickly.
Think of a chatbot as a well-read librarian. Ask it a question and it gives you an answer. An AI agent is more like a capable assistant. Give it a goal and it can work through the steps - triaging your inbox, researching a prospect, analysing information, preparing a report or helping organise your day.
Tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Cowork, Claude Cowork and increasingly accessible agent builders are bringing this technology within reach of ordinary businesses and not-for-profits.
On Wednesday, 21 October at Trust Waikato, Houston Technology Group will run two practical, in-person sessions:
Choose your session
For businesses
What Could an AI Agent Do for Your Business?
8.30 am–10.30 am
See agents help manage emails and calendars, profile prospects, and answer staff questions using your organisation’s information.
For not-for-profits
What Could an AI Agent Do for Your Cause?
3.00 pm–5.00 pm
Explore how agents could ease everyday administration, support an NFP activity and help staff quickly find the information they need.
We will answer three simple questions:
What exactly is an AI agent?
What could one do for you and your organisation?
And what does it cost?
More importantly, we will show you.
You will see agents managing emails and calendars, researching prospects, drawing on organisational knowledge and turning data into useful insights.
Alan Chew will also demonstrate the modern voice-first working approach he estimates saves him at least an hour every day.
Each session begins with 30 minutes of coffee and networking, with plenty of time for questions throughout.
AI agents may still feel new today. We suspect they will soon become a normal part of working life.
Come and see what they can already do.
Right Tool, Right Task
If you're in my industry, or you're a peer of mine, I'm going to assume you use AI. Not because it's trendy. Because you're a professional, and professionals use the right tool for the job.
Hire a builder and watch him frame a house. Circular saw. Nail gun. Fast, loud, done by lunch. Then watch him finish the skirting boards. Out comes the hand saw and the sandpaper. Slow, quiet, precise.
Same builder. Different tool. Same standard.
Nobody asks him to hand-saw the frame "to prove he can still do it properly." And nobody wants a nail gun anywhere near the finishing work either. The tool matches the task, not the tradesman's ego.
That's the whole argument for AI in our line of work. Use it to frame things fast: first drafts, grunt work, the stuff that doesn't need your judgement yet. Then put it down and pick up the fine tools, your experience, your taste, your actual thinking, for the part that matters.
Get the tool wrong either way and it shows. A nail gun through skirting splits the wood. A hand saw on the frame just wastes your Tuesday.
One more thing the builder never skips: PPE. Safety glasses, gloves, the lot. Powerful tools cut fingers as easily as timber. AI's no different. Check the output, question the source, keep your judgement switched on. Don't hand over the whole job and walk off site.
Right tool. Right task. Eyes open the whole time.
Tony Meredith