That Real Estate Tech Guy

Why Automating Your Existing Processes Could Be a Mistake

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Description

This week I want to challenge one of the biggest promises being made about AI right now: automation. It sounds great, take an existing process and make it faster with AI, but I think there's a question that gets skipped way too often. Should this process exist in the first place? When you automate a process without asking that, you're quietly assuming every step, every handoff, and every approval is actually necessary.

I walk through a detailed example: a sales discount approval process, where a salesperson has to escalate a discount request to a manager because the manager holds the judgment and authority to decide. You can automate every step of that request and response cycle and make it much faster, or you can ask why the approval exists at all, and realize that once an AI agent understands your commercial boundaries, most of that back-and-forth can disappear entirely. This is the same mistake many businesses made during digital transformation: they digitized their paper processes instead of asking whether those processes should still exist. Pick one process in your own business this week, and instead of asking what you can automate, ask why each step exists in the first place.

Episode Timeline & Highlights

[0:00] – The big promise of AI automation, and the question that gets skipped

[0:31] – Why automating an existing process assumes the process itself is correct

[1:44] – Introducing the example: a sales discount that requires manager approval

[2:07] – Walking through the current process: request, context gathering, decision, and response

[3:06] – What an automation vendor would immediately offer to speed up that process

[4:06] – The better question: why does the approval process exist in the first place

[4:34] – The real reason: judgment and commercial boundaries live inside the manager's head

[5:07] – Introducing AI labor trained on commercial policy, pricing, and customer history

[5:40] – Setting clear boundaries: what an AI agent can decide, and what still escalates

[6:14] – What happens to the approval process once those boundaries exist

[7:29] – Comparing automating a process versus redesigning the work itself

[8:01] – The digital transformation parallel: paper forms became digital forms, not new processes

[9:33] – Why AI is a new source of intelligent labor, not just a faster way to move information

[10:03] – The bigger question: how many of your processes exist just to move information between people

[11:26] – Why your existing processes aren't sacred, just how work got done given past constraints

[11:56] – Some processes should be kept, some automated, some redesigned, and some eliminated entirely

[12:25] – Separating the actual work (a commercial decision) from the process steps built around it

[13:01] – Why starting with the work avoids the traps hidden in technology, job titles, and process

[13:57] – The uncomfortable discovery: some of what you're about to automate probably shouldn't exist

[14:55] – Framing AI as a labor question rather than a technology question

[16:00] – The exercise: pick one process, map its steps, and ask why each one exists

[17:01] – Why the biggest AI opportunity might be realizing you don't need the process at all

5 Key Takeaways

  1. Automating a Process Assumes It's Correct — Before making a process faster with AI, ask whether the process itself should exist. Every step you automate without questioning it carries forward whatever assumptions created it in the first place.
  2. Approvals Often Exist Because Judgment Lives in One Person's Head — A sales discount approval process exists because a manager holds context and authority a salesperson doesn't. Once that judgment can be captured in clear boundaries, much of the back-and-forth disappears.
  3. AI Can Own a Decision Within Defined Boundaries — Rather than routing every request to a person, an AI agent trained on your policies can approve straightforward cases automatically and escalate only what falls outside the boundaries you've set.
  4. Digitizing a Process Isn't the Same as Redesigning It — Many businesses made this mistake already during digital transformation, turning paper processes into digital ones without ever asking if the underlying steps still made sense.
  5. Your Processes Aren't Sacred — They're simply how your business learned to get work done given the people and systems available when they were created. Some deserve to be kept, some automated, some redesigned, and some should disappear entirely.

Links & Resources

Thanks for tuning in to this one. If this got you second-guessing a process you were about to automate, that's exactly the point, pick one this week and ask why each step actually exists before you make it faster. Head over to thatrealestatetechguy.com for all the episodes and some great discounts on the tech we talk about. More high-signal conversations coming next.