Ten tasks: five without AI, five with.

Without AI. A good rule is enough.

1. The appointment reminder. Booking in the calendar → message the day before. Nothing to interpret.
2. The Monday morning report. The numbers are in the till, the bank, the shop. They get added up, formatted, sent at 07:00.
3. Supplier feeds. A CSV every night, the same columns. Price times margin, stock updated, vanished products hidden from the shop.
4. The invoice from the order. The order has every field. The invoice is issued, the e-invoice goes out, the customer gets the PDF.
5. Chasing unpaid invoices. Due date plus 3 days → polite message. Plus 10 → the second one. Plus 20 → you hear about it.

With AI. Here a rule isn't enough.

1. Supplier invoices from PDFs. Ten layouts, scans, phone photos. The model pulls out the fields, the rule checks them.
2. Customer emails. "Where's my order?" written 50 ways in 3 languages. The model sorts and drafts the reply, you approve.
3. Quote requests in free text. "I want flooring for about 120 metres, in Cluj, as soon as possible." The model pulls out the product, quantity, place, urgency. The rule works out the price, from your list.
4. Summaries of calls and meetings. An hour of conversation → five points and three tasks. The person checks in two minutes instead of rewriting in twenty.
5. Searching the company's documents. "What warranty do we give on the X pumps?" The answer is in a PDF from 2023. The model finds it and quotes the page; the person decides whether it still applies.

See the pattern?

In the first list, the input is a table or an event. In the second, it's text written by people. And in all five AI tasks, at the end there's still a person pressing a button. Not because I don't trust the model, but because that's where catching the mistake is cheap.

If your task is on the first list, don't let anyone sell you AI for it. If it's on the second, don't let anyone promise you it runs without a human.