# 15 automations — traditional process vs AI agent opportunity

Companion to **AI agents for eCommerce: 15 automations store owners can implement**.

Use this as a scoping worksheet. Fill the **Owner** and **Approval** columns for your store. Do not treat every row as a week-one build.

| # | Business area | Traditional process | AI agent opportunity | Read tools | Write / approval |
| - | ------------- | ------------------- | -------------------- | ---------- | ---------------- |
| 1 | Customer support | Queue of repeating order/product/policy tickets | Intent + controlled lookup; escalate legal/chargeback | OMS, catalog, policy KB | Escalate only at first |
| 2 | WISMO | Agent opens OMS + carrier portal | Order + tracking tools; proactive delay notice | OMS, carrier | Notify; human on "delivered not received" |
| 3 | Returns | Manual eligibility + RMA | Policy-grounded recommendation | OMS, returns policy | RMA create above $X needs HITL |
| 4 | Product recommendations | Rule merchandising / batch ML | Session-aware suggest via catalog tools | Catalog, inventory | No price write |
| 5 | Inventory | Spreadsheet + ERP alerts | Risk brief from stock + velocity tools | Inventory, orders | Reorder PO needs HITL |
| 6 | Order operations | Exception queue in OMS | Investigate + recommend hold/split/cancel | OMS, payments, WMS | Cancel/refund HITL |
| 7 | Catalog | PIM tickets, missing attrs | Extract + validate; human publish | PIM, assets | Publish HITL |
| 8 | Segmentation | Static lists in ESP | Risk / value scores from order tools | Orders, CRM | No list overwrite without review |
| 9 | Review intelligence | Monthly spreadsheet | Recurring complaint + feature demand brief | Reviews, catalog | Ticket to merch/QA |
| 10 | Sales intelligence | Looker dashboards | "What changed" with evidence rows | Orders, products | Read-only |
| 11 | Cart recovery | Timed email sequences | Intent-aware recovery; do not invent discounts | Cart, catalog | Discount codes HITL |
| 12 | Marketing ops | Campaign QA in sheets | Brief on stock-outs vs live ads | Ads, inventory | Pause campaign HITL |
| 13 | Vendor ops | Email threads | ASN / delay digest from vendor tools | Vendor portal, PO | PO change HITL |
| 14 | Daily reporting | Morning Slack paste | Priority brief from controlled analytics tools | Orders, inventory, CX | Read-only |
| 15 | Back-office | Mixed queues | Exception triage + approved tool actions | Mixed | Per-action Policy |

## How to score a row this week

1. Ticket or hours per week (your number — do not invent a company-wide KPI).
2. Can a **deterministic** workflow already close it? If yes, do not start with an agent.
3. Does the agent need **natural language** or **incomplete context**? If yes, agent (or hybrid) is in play.
4. What is the blast radius of a wrong write? If high, HITL + Cedar before ENFORCE.