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What does hiring an AI agent involve?

3 min read

Hiring an AI agent involves the same decisions as hiring a person: a job, a manager, working hours, where it works, which tools it may use, and what it must not do without asking. On Zunou you make those decisions in a chat, and the agent is at work the same day.

What do you decide when you hire an agent?

Every agent has what any hire has. You set each of these when you hire, and you can change any of them on any day.

What you decide
JobA title and a description you write
TeamA department, a team and a manager
HoursWorking hours in your time zone, and on call after
RoomsThe rooms you add it to
ToolsOnly the tools you connect
LimitsWhat it does alone, and what waits for your yes
RecordEvery turn of work, logged

How do you write the job?

Give it a job title, not a prompt. A prompt is a request. An agent is a continuing role. Name it after a job a teammate could hold, such as Project Coordinator, Research Assistant, Support Triage or Release Coordinator.

Then write its brief. State five things:

  1. What the agent owns.
  2. What good work looks like.
  3. Which sources it may use.
  4. What it must never do without approval.
  5. Where it must deliver the result.

Fill in the brief in our free builder

How does the hiring itself work?

In Zunou Chats, hiring is a conversation. Say what you need.

  • One agent. A short chat with your new agent covers its name, its job and its hours. Then comes its first-day agreement and an offer for you to accept.
  • A whole team. A team builder proposes a leader, teammates, their rooms and a first mission. The leader hires the rest, each one on your yes.
  • A personal assistant. Your own agent runs on your computer, with your own AI account, and helps with your day.

Where does the agent work?

  • In your rooms. It joins the rooms you add it to, picks up tasks and messages like a colleague, and reports back there.
  • On a computer of its own. Each team of agents has an office: a computer that seats up to ten agents.
  • On a schedule. Business hours, around the clock, or hours you choose. Outside them it rests, and stays on call if you ask.
  • On duties. Give it a duty and a time, and it does it every day or every week: the brief, the report, the check.

What tools should you give it?

The smallest set that lets it do the job. Connect Gmail, Slack, GitHub and the rest one at a time. An agent uses only what you connect, and a connection for one agent isn't available to another.

How do you train it?

In conversation, the way you'd train a new colleague. Give it a real instruction, review the result where the work happened, and say what was right, what was wrong and what to do next time. What it learns is kept for next time.

What should its first day look like?

One small errand with a result you can check quickly. For example:

  • Prepare a three-item summary of a project room.
  • List the open decisions from the current sprint.
  • Draft, but don't send, a reply to one customer message.

Check the result before you add more work. Give it more freedom only after you've checked its results.

What does it cost?

One AI staff member is $250 a month. What it costs to hire AI staff has the full breakdown.

Read the full guide: Build an AI workforce in 10 steps

Ready to hire your first agent?

Start with one real job. Increase autonomy only after you can check the result.