What counts as a task for an AI worker?

Each job an AI worker carries through to its result counts once, however much it contains. That unit, a task, is how The AR Dept counts an AI worker's work. A report covering sixty items is one task, and so is a client onboarding. A question answered in chat counts as a tenth of a task, as does a follow-up question, and counts run to one decimal place. A job that fails or never reaches a result is not counted, and what a job is for each worker is written into its signed role specification.

Why is work counted in tasks?

A role has to be divided into jobs before anyone can write it down, give it a KPI or review it. "Help with the admin" cannot be treated that way. "Send the timesheet reminders on Friday and give the manager the list of who is missing" can.

The unit should be one an owner can check without a technical background. Tokens, credits and compute hours describe what the machine used. A task describes what the business received: if your worker produced the Monday report, that is one task, and you can see the report.

The role specification names each job and the result it ends in. A KPI such as "orders entered on the day they arrive" only means something once an order entered is a defined job with a defined end. At a review, you and we look at the same finished jobs, described in the same words.

What counts as one task?

• A report or digest delivered, however many items it covers.

• A scheduled run that delivers something, including a message that says "nothing new today", because you asked to be told.

• A file or batch processed. A spreadsheet of two hundred rows is one task.

• A case taken to its outcome. A client onboarding is one task whether the client is approved or rejected. Its checks, the risk rating and the update of your other systems are part of that task and are not counted separately.

Why does a question in chat count as a tenth of a task?

A quick answer and a job that runs for weeks are different amounts of work. An onboarding can involve several systems and parties and take weeks to complete. "How many files are open?" is answered in a line. Since 6 October 2026, a question your staff ask the worker in chat counts as 0.1 of a task, and so does each follow-up question. Every other job that reaches its result counts as one. Ten answers in chat add up to one task.

None of this is meant to make anyone think twice before asking the worker something. Staff should use it freely.

What is not counted?

• Failed runs, retries and resumes. If something breaks and the worker has to start again, it is still the same job, and the fault is ours to fix.

• A job that never reaches a result, because it was abandoned, expired or stalled.

• A silent check that finds nothing and tells nobody. A worker that looks at a mailbox has done no task while the mailbox is empty.

• The worker's own clarifying question, and your reply to it. Both belong to the job they were asked about.

• A request outside the worker's role, which it declines briefly.

• Our own housekeeping, monitoring and testing.

How does it add up in a working week?

Take a facilities management business with a worker that chases timesheets. On Friday it sends its reminders and gives the manager a list of who has not submitted, which is one task as that role's specification defines the job. On Monday it sends the payroll clerk the completed set: another task. During the week a supervisor asks it in chat who is missing from one site, which counts as a tenth of a task. Its two silent checks that find nothing new, and its question to the manager about which contract a new starter belongs to, are not counted. The week comes to 2.1 tasks.

The jobs and the volume expected in a month are settled in the worker's role specification before it starts. The finished tasks are then looked at with you in the monthly KPI check-in, against what your team saw arrive.

What is a task confused with?

• A token or a credit. Those measure the computing an AI model used, and say nothing about whether the report arrived.

• An item, a row or a record. A task is the job, so a batch of invoices processed together is one task.

• A message. A job may take the worker a dozen messages and lookups of its own, and it is still one task when it reaches its result.

• An hour. A temp's work is described by the day or the week; an AI worker's by the jobs it finished.

• A to-do. In everyday speech a task is anything on a list. Here it is narrower: a job, defined in the specification, that reached its result.

What does it mean for an owner?

Counting finished jobs gives you something to set beside your own figures. You already know roughly how many orders, renewals, references or reports your business handles in a month, and that is roughly where a worker's count starts, with questions in chat adding a tenth each. It also keeps the conversation about a role short: which jobs you want done, what each must end in and how you will know, agreed before anything is built.

Our starting monthly fee is on the homepage. An AI worker's jobs are written down and its count is reviewed with you. Our explainer on what AI staff are describes the model, and what a managed AI service is sets out what the management covers.

The worker's role would be described in jobs you can see finished, then measured and reviewed with you in the same terms. To see the job you would hand over first set out in tasks before anything is built, talk to our agent.