I've been digging into AI agents and automation over the past few weeks. What I found? Things are changing fast. I built a system that automates almost my entire social media workflow, and it's saving me hours every week. Here's exactly how it works, what it costs, and what it means for your business.
The problem: content takes forever
If you run a business and try to stay active on social media, you know the drill. Record a video. Edit it. Add captions. Write a caption for Instagram. Rewrite it for LinkedIn. Schedule it. Repeat.
It's not hard work, but it's time-consuming as hell. And when you're busy running an actual business, it's the first thing that slips.
Quick answer: I built an automation that handles everything after I hit record.
Record and drop into Google Drive. The rest happens automatically. Under $50/month, saves hours every week.
What I built
I set up an automation that handles almost everything after I hit record. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Record and drop
I record videos on my phone. Quick thoughts, updates, whatever's on my mind. Then I drop them into a Google Drive folder.
That's my only job. Record and drop.
Step 2: Auto-captions (SubMagic)
An automation picks up the video and pushes it to SubMagic. This adds subtitles and effects automatically. The video comes back to Google Drive with captions burned in.
Cost: About $19/month.
Step 3: AI agent does the rest
Here's where it gets interesting. An AI agent:
Transcribes the video automatically.
Understands what I'm talking about.
Writes captions for each platform (different for Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.).
Schedules posts through Buffer.
Tools: I'm using OpenClaw for the AI agent and Buffer for scheduling.
Total investment
I record and drop. Maybe 5 minutes per video. The rest happens automatically.
Total cost: Under $50/month for the whole setup. Time saved? Hours every bloody week.
What this means for your business
I've been investigating AI agents more broadly, and here's what I've found:
Any business that's admin-heavy or operations-heavy, where there's a lot of knowledge being passed around and repetitive tasks that could be systemised, you can automate that stuff now. Like, properly automate it.
Businesses that benefit most
Lots of knowledge transfer between team members.
Repetitive admin tasks like data entry, scheduling, reporting.
Customer enquiries that follow predictable patterns.
Content that needs repurposing across multiple channels.
The honest truth
I don't know how good this automation is going to be long-term. It's part of the reason I'm posting more now. Testing it in the real world.
But what it's telling me is that these AI agents are going to be incredibly powerful, incredibly quickly. The businesses that jump on this now are building efficiency that their competitors will spend years trying to catch up on.
Is it scary? A bit. It puts some jobs at risk. But I reckon the people who make the most of this are the ones who see it as an opportunity to build some crazy efficiency.
Try it this week: Pick one repetitive task in your business. Just one.
Google "[that task] + AI automation" and see what's out there. You might be surprised.
I'll keep reporting back on what works and what doesn't.
Want to see the automation in action?
I'm posting daily on Instagram as I test and refine this system. Follow along @skdigital.nz
Questions about setting this up for your business? Get in touch and let's chat.
