Five things should be on paper before you sign anything with an AI staffing agency: the job worked out together, what it's measured on, the tools and the accounts, the escalation rule, and who answers for the work.
I kept things on ChatGPT as scheduled tasks, and they pinged me every day. I had more capacity, and I spent it approving, approving, approving. I couldn't keep my mind on the overall business.
Now I've got digital employees. I supervise them like I would a person. A worker has a job. A tool and a login is software.
The phrase AI staffing is selling two different things
Search for an AI staffing agency, and most of what you'll find is placements for people who build AI. Every quote you get is a quote for people. That's a fine thing to buy when you want AI experts building a system.
It isn't an AI team.
An AI team is the other purchase. It's digital employees, AI agents holding the jobs on your list that never get a person. I wrote about the hiring side of it in AI staffing is a hiring decision. Nobody writes the posting. When a quote comes in, you need to tell if it's for people who build AI or AI doing the work.
A digital employee takes a whole job from start to finish
Think about the work that lands on you because nobody else is there to do it.
Your SEO, end to end. The digital employee finds the questions your buyers type into Google, writes the page that answers one, publishes it, checks where it lands, and fixes the page that slipped.
You're supposed to post on LinkedIn every day. A digital employee holding that job writes the post, puts it up, and reports back on the numbers you agreed it would watch, your KPIs.
Your Google Business Profile. The digital employee keeps your hours and photos current, reads each new review, answers it, and sends you the one that needs you.
None of those is "write this for me." Each one is the whole job, and nobody has to ask for it again next week because you have a digital employee in place whose job it is to get it done.
You onboard a digital employee instead of approving each piece of the job
An agent or a scheduled task does one piece and waits for your yes. The job stays yours.
A digital employee gets onboarded, the way a new hire does. You give it its role, its KPIs, what it's supposed to do, and the job from start to finish, and it takes that on.
Your part comes up front. You spend time teaching it, checking its first work and making sure it can do the job. Then you let it do the role and supervise it the way you would a person. You step back in with feedback when the business changes direction, so it can work with where you're headed now.
I call it a digital employee and not an agent for that reason. Whoever builds it for you should work out the next five things with you before they quote.
Five things to get on paper before the quote
One. The job, worked out together. You and whoever builds it for you sit down, the way you would with a staffing agency, and write down what the job is, what this worker would do, what done looks like, and how it reports back. I wrote about what goes into that written job in Giving an AI agent a soul file is weirder than it sounds.
Two. What it's measured on. That's the KPIs, the report, and the day it lands. A digital employee can work around the clock, so the hour matters less.
Three. The tools and the accounts. The worker will log into your inbox, your calendar, maybe your Google Business Profile. Those accounts should be in your name, not the name of whoever builds it for you.
Four. The escalation rule, which matters more than any demo. Ask what the worker does when it isn't sure, and who it tells. Someone in an online forum said owners don't need it perfect, they need to know how they'd find out.
Five. Who answers for the work. Not the model. A person with a name, who notices first when it's wrong and fixes it. Because every human employee gets a supervisor.
Work out the job on the call, in words you can read back
On the call with whoever builds it for you, start here. "Let's work out the job this worker does, in a paragraph I could hand to a new hire." A feature list is not a paragraph.
"What does it report back, and when do I see it?" Listen for a day of the week and a report you can open. "What happens the first time it gets something wrong?" You want a person and a step.
A login with no person behind it is software, not a digital employee
A resold login to someone else's software is still software. No name next to the work means nobody answers for it, and no record of what the worker did means you can't check it. If every piece of work still needs your yes after onboarding, you're buying a scheduled task.
The first week should hand you one finished piece of work
The first week is onboarding. One job, say the Google reviews, with something finished you can open and check. By Friday you should be holding the written role, the accounts in your name, and a record of everything the worker did.
Watch for a week that gives you something to look at instead of something done. I built that once, a morning briefing I stopped reading, and wrote about it in Nobody needs a morning briefing.
I build digital employees, and I ask what the job is before I quote. If the job won't fit in a paragraph, it isn't ready for anyone to quote. Me included.