Five Universal Systems

Five Universal Agent Systems

These patterns work across every knowledge work role: sales, operations, marketing, finance, HR, product, legal, leadership, and independent practice.

1) The Noise Filter

What it does: Scans high-volume inputs and surfaces only what matters.

Who needs it: Anyone drowning in email, chat messages, notifications, or updates.

How it works:

You define your signal criteria — what makes something important to you. The agent scans your inputs and produces a short list of items that match, with reasons they matter.

Concrete example — Operations Manager:

"Every morning, scan my email and the #ops-alerts Slack channel. Surface anything related to: delivery delays over 2 days, customer complaints mentioning contract terms, or budget variances over 10%. Ignore routine status updates and automated notifications. Give me the top 5 items with one sentence on why each matters."

Autonomy design:

• Full autonomy: gathering and initial filtering.
• Propose and approve: ranking of priority items.
• Human only: deciding what to do about each item.

2) The Decision Briefing

What it does: Prepares a concise, decision-ready brief for recurring decisions.

Who needs it: Anyone who regularly makes decisions based on scattered information.

How it works:

You define the decision type, the information sources, and the format. The agent assembles the brief before you need it.

Concrete example — Sales Director:

"Before my Monday pipeline review, prepare a brief for each deal in Stage 3+. For each deal, include: last client interaction (date and summary), next scheduled touchpoint, deal size and probability, any risks or blockers mentioned in the last two weeks, and a recommended action. Flag any deal where the last interaction was over 10 days ago."

Output structure:

1. What changed since last review.
2. Why it matters now.
3. Top risks.
4. 2–3 options with tradeoffs.
5. Recommended next action.

3) The Transformation Pipeline

What it does: Converts information from one format to another reliably.

Who needs it: Anyone who regularly reformats, restructures, or repackages information.

Concrete example — HR Business Partner:

"After each round of interviews, I receive feedback from 4–5 interviewers via email (unstructured paragraphs). Transform these into a structured candidate assessment with: overall recommendation (strong yes / yes / maybe / no), key strengths (top 3 across all interviewers), concerns (flagged by 2+ interviewers), and a summary paragraph I can send to the hiring manager."

More examples:

• Meeting notes → action tracker with owners and deadlines.
• Customer call recordings → CRM update entries.
• Research notes → executive summary with recommendations.
• Weekly data exports → formatted client-facing report.

4) The Monitor and Alert

What it does: Watches key signals continuously and alerts you when thresholds are crossed.

Who needs it: Anyone responsible for catching problems early.

Concrete example — Project Manager:

"Monitor the project timeline and flag any task that: is more than 3 days behind schedule, has no update in the last 5 business days, or has a dependency on another late task. When you find one, tell me: what's late, by how much, who owns it, and what downstream tasks are affected."

Common signals to monitor:

• Budget variance beyond a threshold.
• Customer churn indicators.
• Delivery delays cascading to dependencies.
• Competitor activity changes.
• Compliance or policy updates.

5) The Preparation Automator

What it does: Prepares recurring event briefings in your standard format.

Who needs it: Anyone who spends time preparing for meetings, calls, or reviews.

Concrete example — Financial Advisor:

"Before each client meeting, prepare a one-page brief with: portfolio performance since last meeting (vs. benchmark), any significant market events affecting their holdings, life events or goals they mentioned in our last conversation (check my notes), and 2–3 talking points I should cover. Flag anything that requires a recommendation change."

Common use cases:

• Team meetings: agenda, open items, decisions needed.
• Client calls: history, recent activity, talking points.
• Weekly reviews: KPIs, trends, action items.
• Board meetings: financial summary, strategic updates, decisions.
• Performance check-ins: goals progress, feedback summary, development areas.

Which system to build first

Choose the one with the highest score across these criteria:

Start with one system. Get it working. Then expand.