The Coworker

The First Job You Hand Off

Friday, 5 p.m.

The invoices are stacking up again.

Every week the same slog: vendors email PDFs, they land in a folder with names like SCAN0192.pdf, and someone has to rename them, log them in a spreadsheet, and catch which ones are due.

You've used AI to answer questions about work. Tonight it's going to do the work.

What Changes When AI Does the Work?

When AI moves from answering questions to performing multi-step work, the human role shifts: you decide what to hand off, what to verify, and where judgment still belongs with you.

Handoff and oversight

Delegation is useful when the task is clear and the cost of mistakes is managed. It fails when you assume the system shares your goals and standards without checking.

Staying in the loop

Good handoffs include a way to review results, catch errors, and decide what the assistant should never do unsupervised.