Choose a human assistant when you need a person to take responsibility for coordination, relationships and situations that change. Consider AI for preparing information, organising agreed inputs and drafting work you can check. Many owners benefit from a combination: AI prepares, while a person decides and follows through.
Hiring versus automating is not a fair comparison until you describe the job. A morning summary and a person who manages your diary, calls a supplier and handles an upset client cover different responsibilities.
Which kind of help fits the work?
| What you need | AI's possible contribution | Human responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Prepare for meetings | Collect approved context and draft a brief | Set priorities, confirm important facts and decide what to discuss |
| Keep follow-ups visible | Suggest a list from agreed sources | Decide who to contact and make the commitment |
| Coordinate a changing diary | Identify conflicts and prepare options | Negotiate changes and manage relationships |
| Handle an unhappy customer | Prepare a factual history and a draft response | Listen, exercise judgement and own the resolution |
| Prepare recurring documents | Draft from approved templates and inputs | Check accuracy, approve and send |
If your difficulty is that nobody owns these responsibilities, adding software may leave the underlying problem untouched. If the person is already in place but spends too much attention collecting information, AI may be a useful addition.
Use your own costs in the comparison
Write down the work and the full cost of each option. For a human role, use a real employment or service quote with the relevant associated costs. For AI, include configuration, software, support and the time you will still spend preparing inputs and checking results.
This worksheet compares one task, not an employee's entire contribution. You can download the worksheet or fill in the same headings on paper.
| Record | Your figure or answer |
|---|---|
| Task and frequency | What happens, and how often? |
| Current time | Include finding inputs, doing the work and checking it. |
| Proposed time | Include preparation, review, corrections and exceptions. |
| Task owner | Who is responsible when the result is wrong or missing? |
| Setup and running costs | Use the actual quote, subscriptions and support terms. |
| Value of recovered time | What would you realistically do with it? |
| Quality threshold | What must remain accurate and complete? |
A worked example with explicit assumptions
Illustrative arithmetic, not a client result, market price or savings promise. Suppose an owner spends 40 minutes preparing a briefing on each of 20 working days. A trial takes 15 minutes a day including checks, plus one hour of corrections over the month.
- Current time: 40 × 20 = 800 minutes, or 13 hours 20 minutes.
- Trial time: (15 × 20) + 60 = 360 minutes, or 6 hours.
- Time recovered in this example: 440 minutes, or 7 hours 20 minutes.
If the owner values that time at an assumed R300 per hour, its estimated value is R2,200 per month. That is capacity value, not cash in the bank. If the time is not put to useful work or a worthwhile personal purpose, the assumed value needs reconsidering.
Suppose, solely for this example, setup is R6,000 and recurring costs are R1,000 per month. Spreading setup over six months gives a comparison cost of R2,000 per month over that period. The R200 difference from estimated capacity value is small, before allowing for uncertainty. Different review time or usage could remove it. Use your actual quote and trial results before deciding.
The practical question is whether you get a better working day at a cost you accept. A narrow monetary estimate cannot capture every benefit of a PA, and it should not be used to imply that a whole role is replaceable.
How can a PA and an AI assistant work together?
The assistant can prepare a draft meeting pack; the PA checks it, resolves missing information and discusses priorities with you. The assistant can suggest follow-ups; the PA decides how and when to contact people. Agree who reviews each output so both people do not repeat the same checking work.
Training should include the PA if they will use or maintain the setup. They often know which details matter and which exceptions a tidy demonstration leaves out. Instructions should capture that experience rather than making the person adapt to a generic tool.
When should you postpone the AI setup?
- The inputs are too incomplete to produce a useful draft.
- Nobody has time to review the result or own the task.
- The task rarely happens and setup would outweigh its value.
- The proposed access or ongoing cost is unacceptable.
- A shared checklist or a clearer division of responsibility solves the problem adequately.
Start with a short trial when the task is clear. Track review time and quality, then decide whether to continue. For a concrete first output, see the daily briefing. For the choice of setup, use the AI platform evaluation guide.
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