Practical AI: "Beyond Chatbots: Agents that Tackle Your SOPs"

Podcast: Practical AI
Host: Practical AI LLC
Episode Date: December 17, 2025
Guests:

• Daniel Whitenack (CEO, Prediction Guard)
• Chris Benson (Principal AI Research Engineer, Lockheed Martin)
• Jason Butler (CEO, RoboSource)

Episode Overview

This episode explores AI's evolving role in real-world business processes—moving "beyond chatbots" to intelligent agents capable of tackling standard operating procedures (SOPs) and core workflows. With guest Jason Butler, CEO of RoboSource, the hosts dig into making AI-driven automation meaningful, accessible, and empowering for companies and their employees. The conversation spans the psychology of workplace change, practical steps for transforming processes, and the future of human-AI collaboration.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meaningful Work Amid AI Transformation

• Contextualizing Fears Around AI:

  • Jason shares the importance of meaningful work and how AI’s rise triggers questions about purpose and job security.
  • Notably, the real fear he observes isn’t workers fearing AI, but fearing how their leaders will perceive their value as AI shifts job functions.
  • “Most of the people I interact with are afraid that their leadership is going to see their work as not meaningful. And that’s where I think the fear’s coming in...” (05:17, Jason)

• Human Relationships in Business:

  • Jason emphasizes, “Business is a people enterprise; it always has been and I think it always will be... there’s still a human to human piece that exists and we’ve got to embrace that.” (06:12)
  • Even as tasks get automated, success relies on understanding, relationships, and psychological assurance for employees.

2. Rethinking Process, Not Just Automating Old Ways

• Pitfall of Automating "Bad" Processes:

  • The group discusses that simply automating current processes without rethinking them risks embedding inefficiencies.
  • Daniel notes: “If you automate some well-established process, you just sort of get a very efficient bad process, not a new transformative process.” (20:29, Daniel)

• Starting from Scratch:

  • Jason recounts their own experience:
    • Tried to “AI-ify” their existing software development lifecycle (SDLC) step by step.
    • Result: More inefficiency, more complexity.
    • Breakthrough: Rethinking what really needs to happen—starting from zero, tossing legacy assumptions, and leveraging AI’s unique strengths.
    • “Let’s throw out what we had... the tools, they just work different, and they’re tools that we don’t even know how to think about yet.” (13:48, Jason)

3. Encouraging Playfulness and Creativity with AI

• The ‘Playing Beatles Covers’ Analogy:

  • To inspire process innovation, Jason likens AI exploration to playing music for fun:
    • Playing other people’s songs helps spark new creativity.
    • Similarly, playing with AI—even without clear goals—unlocks new intuitive ideas for workflow transformation.
    • “If we’re not just being creative and playing with it, I’m not sure we’re going to find creative new ways on how to plug it into our process.” (18:07, Jason)

• From Tasks to Outcomes: Asking 'Why?' Five Times

  • Jason employs the “5 Whys” technique to break down why a process exists and what the real desired outcome is, then explores radically new ways (using AI) to get there.
  • “Almost every client I start with is: ‘Here’s a thing, I want you to automate it’... There is this kind of mental gap or hurdle between pure automation and what AI is capable of doing.” (21:44, Jason)

4. Change Management & Human Psychology

• Employee Engagement & Fear:

  • Employees’ concerns in previous automation waves persist: It’s not just AI; change itself provokes worry.
  • Jason: “It’s the same problem, y’all. Literally. We don’t like change, like no one does... Don’t move my cheese.’” (30:44)
  • The key is involving leadership, communicating intent, and building a safe space for experimentation.

• Inclusion and Transparency:

  • Best practice: Involve frontline workers in shaping AI-driven change, have leadership communicate clear expectations, and start transition paths that don’t feel like threats, but opportunities.
  • “We’re wanting people to work on other things... we have so much opportunity that we can’t take advantage of, we want to get you moving in these other places.” (24:39, Jason)

5. Beyond Chatbots: Process Coach & Practical Automation

• Problems With Current Automation:

  • Basic workflow automations are often too brittle for real life; the real world introduces ambiguity.
  • High-level steps (“put data in CRM”) don’t match the complexity of context-heavy decisions.

• AI-Aided Process Playbooks:

  • RoboSource’s Process Coach moves beyond task automation:
    • Lets users describe processes as “plays” in plain English.
    • AI manages the context, hands off steps to humans as needed, and incrementally becomes a trusted assistant.
    • Integration into familiar tools (email, Slack, Teams) lowers the learning curve and change resistance.

• Progressive Trust and Agent Adoption:

  • Start with humans in the loop, let AI assist, and only move to full automation as trust and understanding develop.
  • “It kind of feels like you’re talking to just an external employee... It’s asking you questions, you’re going back and forth, and then eventually you get tools... You just want me to add that for you? Yes, please. It now starts to feel like it’s a helpful assistant, until eventually you get to the point where you trust it.” (37:17, Jason)

6. Accessibility and Process Experimentation

• No Technical Skills Required:

  • Instead of daunting drag-and-drop or coding interfaces, CEOs and managers just describe their process in natural language.
  • Jason: “If you’re going to get AI in your business, the leadership’s got to be doing it... I need to be able to read it, kind of like it’s a standard operating procedure.” (40:30)

• A/B Testing for SOPs:

  • Process Coach will enable split-testing process variants and tracking real-world outcomes.
  • This allows for scientific, data-driven process improvement—something rarely feasible for smaller firms.

7. The Future of Business Process and AI

• Voice-First, Conversation-Based Work:
  • Jason predicts that leaders will soon interact with “external team members” (AI agents) by voice, through their phones.
  • “I’m not sure that business leaders are really going to be interacting with computers... it’s going to all come down to their phone and... voice conversation that’s happening. And behind the scenes... your processes... get executed.” (43:03, Jason)
• AI as Trusted Teammate, Not Just a Tool:
  • The vision is for AI not to replace humans but to amplify their strengths, ultimately letting them focus on more strategic or creative activities, not “tasks for tasks’ sake.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Psychological Impact of AI:

  • “This isn’t a technology problem. This is a psychological problem. Because business is done with people. Like business is a people enterprise; it always has been and I think it always will be.”
    — Jason Butler (05:45)

• On Reinventing Process for the AI Era:

  • “You’ve got to challenge your kind of base assumptions... the tools, they just work different, and they’re tools that we don’t even know how to think about yet.”
    — Jason Butler (13:48)

• On Play as a Path to Creativity:

  • “Just by playing... and seeing how other people are doing it, [your mind] starts to get your mind thinking differently. Same thing with AI—you might not have a great use case... but by getting in and asking it those questions... all of a sudden they start to go, ‘Oh, what if?’”
    — Jason Butler (18:35)

• On Change Management:

  • “Change management is a science. It’s been studied... Leadership has to buy in... Then I do think... bringing in people on the front lines... and reaffirming intent [is key].”
    — Jason Butler (24:00)

• On Democratizing AI for Business Users:

  • “If you’re going to get AI in your business, the leadership’s got to be doing it... It’s got to feel extremely accessible, which is why we have to go with plain English to get them to engage it.”
    — Jason Butler (41:21)

• On the Human Side of AI Anxiety:

  • “We have a habit of framing bringing AI in as a new problem. But in a sense it’s really not... That notion of process automation being a frightening thing for employees to be thinking about, ‘am I safe, am I going to be okay’—it’s still really what we’re talking about now, we’re just talking about kind of AI as an actor in that sequence.”
    — Chris Benson (28:23)

• On Future Business Interaction with AI:

  • “I’m not sure that business leaders are really going to be interacting with computers. I think it’s going to all come down to their phone and [be] just voice conversation...”
    — Jason Butler (43:00)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:43] — Jason on meaningful work, value, and psychological impacts of AI
• [09:06] — Management’s challenge: balancing efficiency and human value
• [11:52] — Learning from inefficiency: Why AI-augmenting existing processes can fail
• [17:06] — Play, experimentation, and analogy to music for fostering creative use of AI
• [21:44] — Moving conversations from "automate this" to "why do we do it this way?"
• [23:53] — Change management: leadership buy-in, including the frontline, creating safe space
• [32:45] — Process Coach: AI agents for SOPs, making business process accessible
• [37:00] — Staged adoption: from human-in-the-loop to autonomous AI agents
• [40:10] — Making process building as simple as describing it in natural language
• [42:56] — Vision for the future: voice-first business process execution via AI agents

Summary

This episode is a must-listen for organizations ready to go beyond surface-level AI adoption. The panel dives into psychological, managerial, and technical realities of integrating AI deeply into business workflows, advocating for reimagining—not just automating—how work is done. Through real stories, analogies, and practical tools like Process Coach, the discussion charts a path for companies to unlock both productivity and human fulfillment in the AI-driven workplace of the future.