Understand the process before you automate with AI

Elizabeth Stone, CTO at Netflix, makes a point that sounds trivial but that many overlook: the better you understand the process behind a result, the better you can build an AI system to handle it.

Her method is simple. Map the task by defining the goal, identifying what goes in (input), describing the process itself, establishing context and standards, and finally defining what the output should be.

It sounds like old-fashioned logic, and it is. But precisely that systematic approach determines whether a task should become a fixed 'Skill', a scheduled routine, or a broader agent that works across systems.

For you, this means: the messier your understanding of a workflow, the greater the risk that the AI automation becomes unstable or hard to reuse, both privately and in a business.

Takeaway: Before you set AI to automate something important, spend 10 minutes writing down the process in plain words. If you cannot do that, it is too early to automate, no matter how smart the tool is.