AI Agents for Everyday Use

Module 1 — Understanding Agents

Lesson 2: Choosing the Right Jobs to Delegate

Last updated: 2026-10-09

The best first jobs for an agent are boring, repeatable, easy to check and easy to undo. The worst are anything involving money, irreversible actions or other people's private information.

Lesson 2: Choosing the Right Jobs to Delegate

Blackboard

Boring, checkable, reversible

10 min
Concept 1

Four questions

Before delegating, ask: Is it repeatable, so the brief pays off? Can I check the result quickly? Can I undo it if it goes wrong? What is the worst realistic outcome? A task that scores well on all four (compiling a weekly price comparison, say) is a good candidate. One that fails the last two isn't, however tedious it is.

Concept 2

Good first jobs

Research gathered into a table you then read. Drafting replies that wait in your drafts folder. Renaming and sorting files in a copy of a folder. Checking a set of web pages each morning and summarising changes. Pulling dates from school or work emails into a calendar draft. Each produces something you review before it matters.

Concept 3

Jobs to keep for yourself

Payments and purchases above trivial amounts. Deleting files or emails. Sending messages to people who will act on them. Anything with health, legal or financial consequences. Changing account or security settings. Agents can do these, and products increasingly offer it; the question is whether a mistake would be cheap. Mostly it wouldn't.

Concept 4

Start supervised

Run a new task while watching the first two or three times, or in a mode where every action needs your approval. You'll see where it hesitates, misreads or takes a strange route. Only when it has done the job well several times should you let it run with fewer approvals, and never for the categories above.

Pause and Think

Of your weekly computer chores, which could you undo in a minute if something went wrong?

Flashcards

Key Terms

Click or press Enter to flip a card. Review these before the practice question.

Additional Resources
Practice Question

Which is the best first task to give a new agent?

Does not count for certificate
Choose one answer, use the hint if needed, then check your answer.
Use the hint before checking if you need a nudge.