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Free guide · 9 phases · Worksheets included

How I build an AI employee

The step-by-step process I follow when I build an AI employee for a client. It covers picking the role, getting the knowledge out of your best person's head, and testing before it touches a real customer.

Walk through the 9 phases Score your first role

This is a general framework. Every business has different tools, people and customers, so the AI employee that works for you will look different from anyone else's.

AI EmployeeID 0001
A
Ava
Scheduling Coordinator
Reports to
Mike, Operations Manager
Hours
24/7, never out sick
Status
Phase 7 · Training week
NOT ON PAYROLL

Example badge. Fill in the scorecard below and it becomes yours.

First, what we're building

A GPT waits for you. An AI employee doesn't.

A prompt or GPT
An AI employee
Who starts the workYou, every time
Who starts the workA trigger: a new email, a form, a schedule, a deal changing stage
What it knowsWhatever you paste in
What it knowsA knowledge base built from your SOPs, examples and past work
What it can touchNothing outside the chat
What it can touchYour inbox, CRM, calendar and docs, within set permissions
How you know it worksYou eyeball it
How you know it worksTested on real examples, measured every week

The build, phase by phase

9 phases. 9 gates. No skipping.

Each phase ends with a gate. Don't move on until it's met. Click through each phase, and open Sarah's example to see it done for a 30-person home-services company.

    40–60 focused hours for a first-timer 3–6 weeks before it goes live 1 hr a week after that, for good

    Worksheet · Phase 1

    Which role should you clone first?

    Score one role from 1 to 5 on each question. Most businesses get the first pick wrong. Score two or three people before you decide.

    Pre-filled with Sarah's scores for Mike

    Red-flag check

    Tick any that are true. Any tick means narrow the role or pick your backup.

    Readiness check

    How far are you from your first AI employee?

    Tick everything that's true for your business today.

    The honest part

    The AI is the easy part. Here's where DIY builds stall.

    Phase 2Shadowing never gets finished

    Your best person is buried. That's why you need this, and it's why the sessions keep getting pushed.

    Phase 4The knowledge base is a mess

    Outdated files, conflicting policies, and rules that only live in someone's head.

    Phase 5The connections break

    Logins, permissions and triggers eat weekends. One broken trigger and it silently stops working.

    Phase 7Testing gets skipped

    It looks good on three examples, goes live, makes a mistake, and the team stops trusting it.

    Phase 9Nobody owns it after launch

    No weekly review, so quality drifts until someone switches it off.

    Free strategy call

    Let's build your first AI employee together.

    This is what I do for my clients. I take you through all 9 phases and do the heavy lifting on the knowledge base, connections, instructions and testing. You get an AI employee that's already working, and a team that knows how to supervise it.

    Or book your free strategy call →