Look between the systems
People spend extraordinary amounts of time copying information, checking whether something happened, summarising what changed and moving context from one system to another.
Those tasks rarely appear as a line item in the P&L, but they consume expensive capacity every day.
Measure frequency before complexity
A five-minute task repeated 500 times a month can be a better target than a sophisticated task completed twice a quarter.
Frequency creates the economic base. Once the workflow is understood, AI can often remove several steps rather than simply making one step faster.
Return capacity deliberately
Saving time only creates value if the organisation knows what the returned capacity is for. More customers, faster turnaround, deeper advisory work or fewer bottlenecks are all valid outcomes.
Implementation should name that destination before the automation ships.