How to brief an AI agency: a one-page template

A brief names one job, counts it and sets the limits. Each of the ten fields below answers a question the agency would otherwise ask on the first call or guess at in the quote.

1. The job. Describe one workflow as it runs today, from what starts it to what "done" looks like. Write "sort the shared inbox and create a job for each enquiry", not "use AI in the office".
2. Volume. Give items a week or a month, and the peaks. 140 emails a week with a Monday spike is a different build from 20.
3. Hours. Say who does the work now and how many hours a week it takes, then multiply by the hourly cost and 52. If you don't know your hourly cost, the ONS median full-time rate for April 2026 is £20.81, which leaves out employer National Insurance and pension.
4. Tools and logins. List every system the work touches, the plan you are on and who holds the admin login. Master of Code finds integrations and data preparation take 40% of a typical agent build, and Softomate says a legacy system with no API can add 2 to 3 weeks.
5. Data. Say what personal data is involved, where it lives and whether any of it is special category data. The ICO requires a data protection impact assessment where processing is likely to be high risk, and the guide to UK GDPR and AI explains the tests.
6. What must stay human. Name the actions a person must approve, such as payments, emails to customers, deletions, prices and decisions about people.
7. Success measure. Pick one or two numbers with today's baseline, such as hours a week or the share of items handled correctly on a test set of your own past work.
8. Budget range. Give a range, with the yearly cost from field 3 as the ceiling for a first-year payback. Published UK prices start at £1,500 for a simple automation and £6,500 for a controlled agent on Softomate's list.
9. Deadline. Give a date and the reason for it, such as a busy season or a contract renewal. SpotDev, a UK agency, says a first rollout typically goes live in two to three weeks.
10. Owner. Name one person with time for weekly demos and testing, and the authority to approve decisions during the build.

This example uses stated assumptions for a 14-person heating and plumbing firm. Swap in your own numbers.

The budget line follows from the hours line. £8,656.96 a year of saved time sets the year-one ceiling at about £8,600. Softomate lists AI integration into an existing system from £4,000 plus £299 a month, which is £4,000 + 12 × £299 = £7,588 in year one before usage, so a build at that list price fits. The ONS rate leaves out employer costs, so the real saving is higher.

Yarigai is a done-for-you AI agency in London that builds AI agents, inbox triage, invoice chasers, document reading and filing, CRMs and internal tools inside the client's own accounts and tools. A brief with the ten fields above gives the first conversation its numbers.

1. A free 30-minute scope call on Google Meet. The client keeps the notes whether it hires Yarigai or not.
2. A blueprint, which takes about a week and is credited to the build. It sets out a written plan, a clickable prototype, the monthly running cost, a fixed price and the payback maths.
3. The build, which takes 2 to 6 weeks in the client's accounts, with a demo of working software every week. A single workflow can go live in about two weeks.
4. Optional monthly care, which the client can cancel any month and keep everything.

The client owns the code, the data and the accounts from day one, and pays AI and hosting bills at cost. A person approves anything that sends money, emails a customer or deletes data. Yarigai's guarantee reads "If the build isn't profitable for you, we won't build it." If the blueprint maths doesn't come out ahead within the first year, Yarigai doesn't take the job. More on the guarantee.