This is probably the first article I should have written on this site, because it's probably the first question people ask when they learn about SAFi.
"What can I run in the damn thing?"
Sounds good. Sounds interesting. But what can I actually do with it?
The answer is pretty much anything, except brewing your coffee, although it could probably figure that out too!
An agent is essentially a workflow, a defined pipeline of steps, where AI can interpret the task, understand what needs to be done, and use the available tools to do it.
Let me give you a real example.
I'm the webmaster for two nonprofit organizations here in Boston, where I live. Besides custom work on their websites, most of the requests I get involve updating mailing lists or changing information on pages.
One organization uses SmartMail, and the other uses Microsoft 365.
I have an agent for each organization that can update the mailing lists and websites when I tell it to.
When I receive a request for an update by email, I copy and paste the email into the agent and tell it what to do. The agent performs the changes and generates a confirmation back to the sender.
It takes less than a minute. What used to take me several minutes can now be handled almost automatically.
The same thing applies to website updates.
And everything I do is recorded in the SAFi Audit Hub, so I have a complete record if I ever need to go back and confirm what was changed, when it was changed, or why.
Those aren't the only agents I run.
I have a Bible Scholar agent that sends me the daily readings to my email every morning, along with a quick reflection.
I also have a marketing agent that schedules, edits, and publishes these posts.
On average, I probably run between 250 and 300 turns through SAFi every day, so I'm a pretty active user.
And that's really the point.
When you're thinking about what agents to build in SAFi, or on any other platform, don't start by thinking about the technology.
Instead, step back and look at the things you do every day.
- What do you do repeatedly?
- What requires you to follow the same sequence of steps?
- What information do you have to look up?
- What systems do you have to update?
- What do you have to copy and paste from one place to another?
Those are all potential agents.
Once you define the pipeline, the rest is mostly a matter of finding the right tools for the job.
There are many MCP tools available now. And even when an MCP tool doesn't already exist for what you need, you can build one yourself.
Or we can build the agents for you. See our managed services at https://runsafi.com.
If you can do it manually, we can build it.
That's where I think the real potential of agents starts to become interesting.
Don't ask, "What can AI do?"
Ask, "What do I do every day that doesn't need me to do it myself?"
