The honest checklist

Replace a hire with AI: the honest checklist.

Most vendors will not answer this query directly; here is our attempt to answer it honestly. One rule frames the whole page: “replace” takes a role as its object, never a person. Run the checklist against anyone selling you AI staff — including us.

Seven questions

Ask these before you decide anything.

1. Is the work execution or judgement?: Execution — drafting, booking, monitoring, drafting again — is what AI staff replace. Judgement, relationships, and anything with hands are not, and a vendor who claims otherwise is selling you their confidence, not their architecture. Here the split is enforced: judgement calls arrive at your desk, by design.
2. What did the role produce last quarter?: List the artifacts — posts shipped, entries booked, tickets closed. That list is the job, and it is the baseline any replacement has to meet on your real inputs, not on a demo.
3. Is the work reversible?: A draft is reversible; a sent email is not; a payment is definitely not. Ask what the product does at that line. Here, anything irreversible stops at a human at every trust level — the gate is enforced at the API, not written in a policy.
4. Who is accountable when it goes wrong?: A hire has a name on their work. Insist on the same from software: every action attributed, every permission on a record with a reason, so “what happened” has an answer you can read rather than a vendor to call.
5. What does it really cost — both sides?: You know the loaded salary; you sign it. Price the other side honestly too: the fee plus the meter, with the meter’s worst month, not its best. Our arithmetic is on the total-cost page — $39 plus usage at your provider’s prices, capped.
6. What happens on day one?: A hire’s first week is onboarding. If an AI product’s first week is autonomous action, the trust arrived by marketing. Here day one is parked drafts, and authority arrives only as you grant it, on the record.
7. What can you undo?: A bad hire is months to unwind. Ask what unwinding the software looks like: here the dial turns down as easily as up — to T0, where a name prepares nothing and costs almost nothing — and the fee is refundable in full for 30 days.

The other decision

Sometimes the honest answer is a deferral, not a replacement.

For a solo founder, the real question is usually not “should I replace someone” but “is the next $60,000–$90,000 loaded salary necessary yet.” The roster is built for that deferral: hold the execution roles now, and make the hire when the work outgrows what execution alone can carry — with a quarter of artifacts to show the person you eventually bring in.

For the people you already employ, the product forces nothing. The ladder supports a name drafting under a person indefinitely, or holding a role alone at the top. What we won’t do is pretend the top of the ladder is not the top — companies buy this for that, and we say so plainly.

The record

The industry’s own numbers say: slowly.

Forrester’s Predictions 2026 research found 55% of employers who made AI-driven redundancies now consider it a mistake. CMU’s TheAgentCompany benchmark (NeurIPS 2025) found the best model completed roughly 30% of simulated office tasks end-to-end unaided. Neither number is an argument against AI staff; both are arguments against deciding fast.

This is why the checklist starts with the role and not the product, and why day one here is drafts. Run the parallel month, hold the work to the baseline, and make the decision on artifacts — the switching guide is the method, written out.

Direct answers

The questions this page raises.

Should I let someone go and buy this?

That is a judgement call, and judgement is the thing we do not sell. What the architecture guarantees: roles move one at a time, at a pace you set, with a record of what actually got produced — which is the evidence that decision deserves, whichever way you make it.

Which roles should move first?

The unfilled ones — the books at midnight, the newsletter that slips, the renewals nobody tracks. Replacing an empty chair has no downside case, and the evidence it produces tells you whether the filled chairs are even a question.

What does the first month cost to find out?

$39 plus single-digit usage at the starter profile, refundable in full for 30 days. The worked numbers are on the total-cost page; the method for the month is the switching guide.

Stop hiring. Start declaring.

Run the checklist, then run the parallel month: real work, parked drafts, your baseline — and a decision made on artifacts.

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