AI employees: what they are and how to set one up.

Many people now call them AI employees. We call them AI collaborators: AI that can find information, draft, and carry out agreed steps with the tools you connect, while your people direct the work, review it, and stay responsible for the results.

What an AI collaborator can take on.

Most start with one piece of recurring work that your people already know well.

Finding and organizing information

Gather what is needed from your documents, inbox or systems and bring it together in one place, with sources, for a person to use.

Drafting

Prepare first drafts of quotes, replies, reports, summaries or briefs from your own templates and examples, ready for review.

Agreed steps in your tools

Carry out defined steps in connected tools, such as updating a record or preparing a schedule, with approval wherever you want it.

Keeping work moving

Track open requests and follow-ups, show what is waiting, and bring exceptions to the right person instead of guessing.

What it costs to set one up.

Every step after the first conversation is optional and agreed in writing before work begins.

Signal Triage

45-minute Zoom · Prepared in advance $375

Bring the work you want help with. We look at where AI could fit, what it would need and whether it is worth doing now. You leave with a meeting summary and recommended next steps.

Credited toward your next accepted scope.

Capacity & Buildout

Hands-on setup and training Typically $25K–$75K

We define the role, connect the information and tools it needs, set up review and approvals, test it on real work and train your team to direct it.

Larger projects are quoted separately.

A Signal Briefing ($10K plus expenses) comes first only when a bigger question needs settling before the build. Continuing support is a separate engagement.

Where people stay in charge.

These are agreed before anything is set up.

01

A defined role

One clear job, written down: what it works on, what good work looks like and what it should never do.

02

Only the access it needs

It sees only the information and tools the role requires. Access is agreed before systems are connected.

03

Human review

People approve what matters, such as anything sent to a customer and any change to money, prices or dates.

04

A way to stop

A named person can pause or override it at any time, and the work continues by hand.

One example, on paper.

A fictional company wants help with quotes and follow-ups. This is the shape of what we would agree before setup.

The role

Quote and follow-up coordinator for a fictional 140-person property-services company with three offices: drafts quotes from one shared price list and keeps every open request moving.

  • Reads new requests and the price list
  • Drafts quotes and follow-up emails
  • Suggests visit times from the crew calendar
  • Flags anything the price list does not cover
Every quote is approved by a person before it is sent.

What a person always does

The decisions that carry the company’s name stay with people.

  • Approves and sends every quote
  • Handles complaints and exceptions
  • Sets and changes prices
  • Can pause the collaborator at any time
Named owner: the operations director.

How we would know it helps

Agreed at the start and reviewed together after the first month.

  • Quotes go out sooner
  • Fewer requests wait without a reply
  • Drafts need fewer corrections
  • The team finds it worth keeping
Nothing is promised; the review decides what to keep, change or stop.

The company is fictional. Client information and results are shared only with a client’s approval.

Which AI it uses.

We are model agnostic and work across providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and open-source models. The work decides the tool, not the other way round.

deepmoat.ai is an OpenAI Select Partner and a registered partner in Anthropic’s Claude Partner Network; those relationships do not decide the recommendation. Relevant referral or resale interests are disclosed before a commitment.

Who wrote this page.

Keri Nakamoto, founder of deepmoat.ai, which has been putting AI to work inside a real company since 2022.

Start with the work in front of you.

Signal Triage is a prepared 45-minute working session on Zoom for $375. Bring one task you would like help with; you do not need a technical brief.