Date
Nov 26, 2024
Author
Eduard Cristea
Topics
7
minute read
It's 3 AM at Mount Sinai Hospital. In the quiet hours, while doctors sleep and nurses change shifts, thousands of faxes quietly pile up. Each contains critical patient information – referrals, lab results, insurance authorizations. By morning, Sarah, the intake coordinator, will face hundreds of urgent documents requiring immediate attention. She'll spend her day manually entering data, calling insurance companies, scheduling appointments, and coordinating care. Tomorrow, she'll do it all again.
Across town, at Paramount Properties, Spencer's team is bracing for another Friday afternoon. They know that inevitably, just before closing time, multiple maintenance emergencies will hit simultaneously. Boilers will break. Pipes will leak. Tenants will need immediate assistance. The team will stay late, juggling calls, coordinating contractors, and managing crises.
This isn't just a story about healthcare or real estate. This is the reality of modern business operations – humans constrained by time, overwhelmed by information, trapped in necessary labor.
But what if it didn't have to be this way?
The Messy Business Reality
Walk into any business today, and you'll find the same scene: an army of skilled professionals spending their days sifting through what we call "the messy business problem":
Healthcare administrators manually processing referral faxes
Property managers juggling urgent maintenance emails
Legal assistants sorting through case documents
Insurance processors reviewing claim forms
Freight coordinators managing shipping notifications
This isn't just inefficiency – it's the bottleneck that constrains every business operation. Each document, each email, each message requires human judgment, human processing, human routing. And humans, no matter how skilled, are bound by time.
Consider the typical workflow:
Information arrives (faxes, emails, calls, messages)
Humans manually review and categorize
Data gets entered into various systems
Decisions are made based on business rules
Actions are initiated in downstream systems
The process repeats, endlessly
Each step requires human attention. Each step creates delay. Each step introduces potential error.
Beyond Traditional Solutions
The traditional approach to this problem has been to create more tools:
Document management systems
Automated form processing
RPA scripts
Point AI solutions
But these tools miss the fundamental point: they still require humans to operate them. They turn humans into tool operators rather than freeing them from the task entirely.
The SOME-1 Revolution: From Tools to Workers
At SOME-1, we're taking a radically different approach. Instead of creating more tools for humans to operate, we're creating autonomous workers that own entire operational roles.
Think about the difference:
Real World Impact: A Worker, Not a Tool
Let's look at what this means in practice. Take Mount Sinai's intake process:
Traditional Process:
Sarah checks faxes at 9 AM
Manually enters patient data into EMR
Passes information to Tom for insurance verification
Tom routes to Jane for scheduling
Jane coordinates with doctors' calendars
Process takes days, stops at 5 PM
SOME-1 Worker:
Processes referrals instantly, 24/7
Extracts and verifies all patient data
Checks insurance in real-time
Coordinates with scheduling systems
Communicates with patients and staff
Complete intake in minutes, any time
This isn't automation. It's an autonomous worker that understands the entire intake role, makes decisions, and takes ownership of outcomes.
The Power of Understanding
What makes this possible isn't just processing speed. It's understanding. Our workers don't just move data – they comprehend it. When a fax arrives at 3 AM containing urgent patient information, our worker:
Understands Context
Recognizes urgency levels
Identifies key medical information
Comprehends insurance requirements
Knows facility protocols
Makes Decisions
Prioritizes based on medical need
Routes to appropriate departments
Initiates urgent protocols when needed
Coordinates complex scheduling
Takes Ownership
Manages entire workflows
Communicates with all parties
Ensures completion
Learns from outcomes
Beyond Single Departments
The real power emerges when these workers handle cross-functional roles. A single SOME-1 worker can:
The Market Reality: Beyond Point Solutions
While others focus on automating individual tasks - document processing here, scheduling there - we're witnessing a larger opportunity. The "messy business" isn't just a problem to solve; it's the gateway to transforming how business operates.
Consider the numbers:
$250B spent annually on business process outsourcing
8M+ operations and information clerk roles in the US alone
60% of knowledge worker time spent on routine coordination
$42T global labor market waiting to be transformed
But these numbers tell only part of the story. The real opportunity lies in what happens when you own the top of the operational funnel.
The Compound Effect
When a SOME-1 worker handles incoming information, something remarkable happens:
By understanding and owning the initial interaction, our workers earn the right to:
Initialize downstream workflows
Coordinate across systems
Make informed decisions
Drive business outcomes
Beyond Efficiency: The Strategic Advantage
This transformation isn't just about cost savings or efficiency. It's about fundamental competitive advantage:
Scale Without Constraint
Expand operations instantly
Enter new markets seamlessly
Handle volume spikes effortlessly
Perfect Knowledge Retention
Never lose institutional knowledge
Learn from every interaction
Continuously improve processes
True 24/7 Operation
Serve global markets
Handle after-hours emergencies
Eliminate time zone constraints
The Future of Work: Beyond the Messy Business
What we're witnessing isn't just another wave of automation. It's the beginning of a fundamental shift in how business operates. The messy business - that seemingly mundane problem of information overload - is our wedge into something much bigger.
The Evolution
Think about what happens when businesses are no longer constrained by:
Human attention spans
Working hours
Information processing capacity
Geographic locations
Language barriers
System limitations
The Three Waves of AI in Business
First Wave: AI Tools
Automate specific tasks
Augment human capabilities
Still require human operation
Second Wave: AI Assistants
Handle multiple tasks
Learn from interaction
Need human oversight
Third Wave: Autonomous Workers
Own entire roles
Make complex decisions
Operate independently
We're leading the third wave. While others build better tools or smarter assistants, we're creating true workers that transform how business operates.
The Near Future
Within the next 12-24 months, we'll see:
Complete Role Transformation
Entire operational departments run by autonomous workers
Perfect coordination across functions
Real-time scaling based on demand
New Business Models
Operations that never sleep
Global service without time zones
Infinite scalability without human constraints
Economic Impact
90% reduction in operational costs
1000x increase in processing capacity
Unlimited business growth potential
The Long View
But this is just the beginning. As our workers evolve, we'll see:
Each phase compounds the benefits of the previous one, creating entirely new possibilities for how businesses operate and how humans work.
The Call to Action
The messy business problem isn't just a challenge - it's an opportunity. An opportunity to:
Transform how business operates
Redefine what's possible
Create true operational freedom
Enable unlimited growth
For businesses ready to evolve, the choice is clear: Continue struggling with tools and tasks, or deploy autonomous workers that transform your operations.