An agentic workflow is a business process where an AI agent works towards a goal over several steps. It reads information, uses your tools, makes decisions within limits, and hands over to a person when it should.
Below are ten examples that businesses run today. Each one shows the same four parts: what starts it, what the agent does, where a person checks the work, and the result. Use them as ideas for your own first workflow.
What makes a workflow agentic?
Six parts every example shares
A normal automation runs the same fixed steps every time. An agentic workflow has a goal and some freedom in how it reaches it. Every example in this post has six parts:
- Trigger: the event that starts it, such as a new email or the end of the month.
- Goal: what "done" looks like.
- Tools: the systems the agent may use, such as the CRM, inbox or accounting software.
- Steps: the agent plans and carries them out, adjusting as it goes.
- Person checks: the points where a person approves, edits or takes over.
- Log: a record of everything the agent did.
1. Inbound lead qualification
Sales
Trigger: a new enquiry arrives through the website form or email.
What the agent does: reads the message, looks up the company online, checks the CRM for past contact, scores the lead against your ideal customer profile, and drafts a personal reply with a meeting link.
Person checks: a salesperson reviews high-value leads before the reply goes out.
Result: good leads hear back within minutes, and the sales team spends its time on the right conversations.
2. Support ticket triage and draft replies
Customer Support
Trigger: a customer emails or opens a ticket.
What the agent does: works out the topic and urgency, pulls the customer's order or account details, searches your help articles, and drafts a reply.
Person checks: a support agent approves or edits the draft. Anything about refunds above a set amount, or an angry customer, goes straight to a person.
Result: faster first replies and a support team that spends less time searching for information.
3. Invoice processing and bank reconciliation
Finance
Trigger: a supplier invoice arrives by email or upload.
What the agent does: reads the supplier, date, amount and tax from any layout, matches it to a purchase order, records it in the accounting software, and later matches the payment in the bank feed.
Person checks: an accountant reviews invoices that do not match, look like duplicates, or are above a set amount.
Result: far less manual data entry and a faster month-end close.
4. Month-end reporting
Finance and Management
Trigger: the last working day of the month.
What the agent does: pulls figures from accounting, sales and payroll, compares them with last month and the budget, flags unusual changes, and drafts a short report with charts.
Person checks: the finance lead reviews the flags and the summary before the report is shared.
Result: managers get their numbers sooner, with the important changes already highlighted.
5. Candidate screening and interview scheduling
HR and Hiring
Trigger: a new job application arrives.
What the agent does: compares the CV with the role's must-have requirements, writes a short summary for the hiring manager, and, for shortlisted candidates, offers interview slots from the interviewers' calendars.
Person checks: the hiring manager decides who to shortlist. The agent only summarises and does not reject anyone on its own.
Result: hiring managers read a one-paragraph summary instead of every CV, and interviews get booked without long email threads.
6. New employee onboarding
HR and IT
Trigger: an offer letter is signed.
What the agent does: creates accounts in the tools the role needs, orders equipment, sets up a first-week calendar, sends welcome emails and answers the new joiner's common questions from your handbook.
Person checks: IT approves access to sensitive systems, and the manager confirms the first-week plan.
Result: new joiners are ready to work on day one, and HR is not chasing a checklist.
8. Competitor and market monitoring
Strategy
Trigger: a weekly schedule.
What the agent does: checks competitors' websites, pricing pages, job posts and news, notes what changed since last week, and writes a short summary of what it might mean for you.
Person checks: the founder or product lead reads the summary and decides what to act on.
Result: the team stays informed without anyone spending hours browsing every week.
9. Inventory and reorder planning
Operations
Trigger: stock of an item falls below a set level, or a weekly review.
What the agent does: looks at recent sales, seasonal patterns and supplier lead times, suggests how much to reorder, and drafts the purchase order.
Person checks: the operations manager approves every purchase order before it is sent.
Result: fewer items out of stock and less money tied up in excess stock.
10. Bug report triage
Product and Engineering
Trigger: a user reports a problem through the app, email or a support ticket.
What the agent does: groups duplicate reports, collects the device, browser and steps to reproduce, checks the error logs, guesses which part of the product is affected, and creates a well-written ticket for the right team.
Person checks: an engineer confirms the priority before work starts.
Result: developers get clear tickets instead of vague complaints, and serious bugs are spotted sooner.
How to pick your first agentic workflow
High value, low risk first
Don't start with the most impressive workflow. Start with the one that is easiest to trust. Score each idea on two questions:
- Value: how often does this task happen, and how much time does it take today?
- Risk: what happens if the agent gets it wrong? Is the mistake easy to spot and undo?
Pick a workflow that scores high on value and low on risk, such as support triage, lead qualification or bug report triage. Agents there draft and sort, and a person still approves the final step. Once your team trusts it, move on to higher-risk work such as finance and purchasing.
