Your office AI assistant: answers, drafts or actions?

When choosing an office AI assistant, start by deciding how much authority it needs. Finding an approved procedure, preparing an internal update and acting on that update are different responsibilities. Agreeing those boundaries gives you a clearer brief for evaluating suppliers, deployment options and cost.

Choose one repeated task where you can explain what a useful result looks like and who checks it. Digitalised Solutions offers to scope an assistant around a task such as finding a current procedure or drafting an internal summary, with permitted information, actions and approval points agreed before implementation.

Follow one workflow through three boundaries

Consider an illustrative office handover. A colleague needs to find the current procedure, prepare an internal update from permitted records and propose a next step for a responsible person to review. This is a possible scope, not a completed customer example.

Answers: the assistant finds information in approved sources. Agree which documents it may read and what should happen if two versions conflict or the answer is missing. For this workflow, ask for a route back to a document owner rather than allowing an uncertain answer to become an instruction.

Drafts: the assistant prepares an internal update using the information it is permitted to access. A named colleague checks the draft against the records and current procedure. Preparing text should not itself authorise sending it or changing a record.

Approved actions: the responsible person reviews the proposed next step. If you want the assistant to carry out an action after approval, define that action separately, including who can approve it and how problems are handed back. You can also keep execution with the person while assessing whether answers and drafts are useful enough.

These boundaries help you buy a specific workflow with understandable responsibilities.

Choose deployment around the task and data

Ask suppliers to assess local, on-premises, cloud and hybrid options against the same workflow. For local or on-premises deployment, establish what runs within your environment and which external dependencies remain. For cloud deployment, establish what information goes to a provider. For hybrid deployment, map which parts run where and what moves between them.

Local hosting alone does not guarantee security, privacy or compliance, and it does not necessarily mean the workflow is fully offline. Permissions, information handling and operational responsibilities still need attention whichever option you choose.

If hardware is needed, treat supply as part of a scoped written quote. Configuration, availability, price, delivery and support should be agreed before an order.

Name the people who keep it useful

A correct answer today can become outdated when a procedure changes. Name the owner of source updates and the person responsible for granting or removing access. Also agree who maintains models, software, backups and any connected services.

Before handover, clarify support coverage, monitoring and recovery: who receives a problem, who restores service and how staff continue the task while it is being resolved. Human handoff needs an owner as well as a process.

Use a pilot to check source accuracy, access boundaries, review effort, response time and recovery. Judge whether the workflow merits expansion from those checks; productivity or financial gains are not guaranteed.

Bring a concrete task to the first conversation

Bring the repeated task, its approved sources, intended users, current checking effort and actions needing approval. Include any local or on-premises requirements. Those details make it easier to discuss a useful first scope.

Digitalised Solutions’ office AI assistant service agrees assessment or pilot scope, timing and price in writing before chargeable work, identifying hardware, provider usage and support separately.

To discuss your task, book a free discovery call.