The Keeper

Operations agents run back-office processes: matching invoices, handling exceptions, onboarding vendors, checking policy compliance, coordinating schedules and handovers, and producing audit trails.

• High-volume, rule-shaped work with a clear definition of done
• Producing a complete, timestamped record of what was done
• Straight-through processing where master data is clean
• Chasing, reconciling, and coordinating without fatigue

• Genuine exceptions, which is where the cost usually sits
• Operating on inconsistent or duplicated master data
• Judgement calls that carry financial or contractual consequence
• Anything that assumes an undocumented internal convention

• Financial: an agent with payment authority is a control question, not a productivity question.
• Control: segregation of duties and four-eyes rules must hold for non-human actors too.
• Audit: if the action log is incomplete, the process is not auditable.
• Concentration: back-office agents accumulate access across many systems.

• Ask for the value threshold above which a human must approve, and whether it is enforced in the product.
• Confirm the action log is immutable and exportable.
• Pilot on exceptions, not on the clean path.
• Involve internal audit before the pilot, not after it.