All field notes

Databricks holds the lakehouse data and, through Unity Catalog, the governance that makes an agent's data access defensible. This guide covers grounding agents in Unity Catalog metadata, executing queries through SQL warehouses as the requesting user, using Databricks model serving and vector search, and evaluating agents with the platform's own tooling.

Klaviyo holds the customer event stream and the lifecycle messaging for a large share of e-commerce brands, which makes it a strong base for an agent that improves campaigns and a dangerous one for an agent that sends them. This guide covers API and event access, segment and flow analysis, content drafting under brand and consent controls, and where the agent should propose rather than act.

Looker's LookML semantic layer is the reason it suits AI agents better than most BI tools: the definitions already exist, and an agent that queries through them inherits governed metrics and row-level security. This guide covers using LookML as the grounding layer, the Looker API for query execution, natural-language question handling, and keeping the agent inside the permissions users already have.

Power BI's semantic models hold the measures, relationships, and row-level security that make an agent's answers consistent with the reports people already trust. This guide covers querying semantic models through the execute queries API with DAX, running as the requesting user, grounding in model metadata, and returning answers with the measure, filters, and report link that let users verify.

Segment is the customer data pipeline that everything downstream depends on, which means an agent there can improve data quality across the whole stack or quietly corrupt it. This guide covers tracking plan governance, event schema and quality monitoring, profile and audience access, and the activation patterns that add value without introducing bad events into the stream.

Tableau's governance lives in published data sources and the workbooks built on them, and an agent that queries through those inherits certified definitions and permissions. This guide covers the REST API and VizQL Data Service for headless queries, using published data sources as the grounding layer, running as the requesting user, and returning answers with the workbook and field provenance users can check.

Amplitude holds the behavioural data product teams argue about, and an agent that answers their questions accurately changes how decisions get made. This guide covers API access and the event taxonomy, translating natural-language questions into governed queries, anomaly detection on key metrics, and keeping interpretation grounded so the agent explains the data rather than inventing a narrative.

Dropbox holds working files for teams that value simplicity over administration, which means an agent inherits both a clean API and folder structures nobody designed. This guide covers OAuth for individual and team accounts, reacting to file events, respecting shared folder permissions, and the organisation, extraction, and retrieval workflows worth building.

Gmail is the mailbox for Workspace organisations and a large share of small businesses, and its API is straightforward enough that the difficulty is entirely in doing it safely. This guide covers OAuth scope selection and app verification, Pub/Sub push notifications, label-based triage, drafting without sending, and the Workspace admin and compliance controls that govern the whole thing.

Google Drive is the working document store for organisations on Google Workspace, and its permission model is the most granular of the mainstream platforms. This guide covers OAuth versus domain-wide delegation, honouring Drive permissions in retrieval, handling native Docs, Sheets, and Slides, change detection, and the classification, extraction, and retrieval workflows worth building.

Twilio is the programmable layer beneath SMS, WhatsApp, and voice for a large share of customer communication, which makes it the natural place to put a conversational agent and the place where messaging regulation bites hardest. This guide covers channel differences, webhook-driven conversation state, consent and sender compliance, latency for voice, and escalation to people.

Meetings generate the decisions and commitments that never make it into any system, and Zoom holds the recordings and transcripts that could change that. This guide covers Zoom app types and OAuth scopes, accessing recordings and transcripts, the consent and notice obligations that govern recorded speech, and building summaries and action tracking people actually trust.

Outlook holds the highest-volume, most sensitive stream in the organisation, and Microsoft Graph gives an agent access to all of it with a single consent. This guide covers Graph permission models, mailbox and calendar access, the triage, drafting, and scheduling workflows worth building, and the controls that keep an agent from sending something it should not.

Enterprises have powerful models and stalled projects. The blocker is almost never the model—it's the messy last mile of data, integration, governance, and adoption.

AI is probabilistic, but your business needs dependable outcomes. The engineering—specs, evaluation, guardrails, verification—that makes AI output reliable.

Box is where regulated enterprises keep the documents they cannot lose, which makes it a strong foundation for document agents and a place where permission mistakes are serious. This guide covers app authentication and as-user access, enforcing folder permissions in retrieval, using Box metadata, and the classification, extraction, and retrieval workflows worth building.

Freshdesk holds the ticket queue, the knowledge base, and the customer history an agent needs, which makes it a good platform for support automation and an easy one to do badly. This guide covers API integration, triage and response drafting, grounding answers in knowledge articles, escalation design, and measuring resolution rather than deflection.

monday.com runs operational processes across sales, marketing, HR, and delivery in boards that each team shapes for itself. This guide covers the GraphQL API and column model, permission scoping, the intake and reporting workflows worth automating, and how to build an agent that survives the board changes teams make constantly.

Notion holds the documentation, project trackers, and operational databases that internal AI agents need, in a structure that is flexible enough to be inconsistent. This guide covers API integration, working with Notion's block and database model, permission scoping through integration access, and the internal workflows that pay back.

Airtable holds the operational databases that fall between spreadsheets and real systems, which is exactly where manual work accumulates. This guide covers API integration and schema handling, rate limit design, the record maintenance and intake workflows worth automating, and how to keep an agent working when the base schema changes underneath it.

Asana holds the work itself, which makes agents there useful for intake, status, and reporting and dangerous if they start reassigning people's tasks. This guide covers API and webhook integration, working with Asana's project and task model, the intake and reporting workflows that pay back, and where an agent should stop and ask.

Intercom sits in the product where customers are already stuck, which makes its agents higher-leverage and higher-risk than a ticket queue. This guide covers API and webhook integration, conversation state, grounding answers in help content and product data, handover to teammates, and measuring resolution rather than containment.

Dynamics 365 sits on Dataverse, which gives agents a clean data surface and a security model expressive enough to scope them properly. This guide covers integration through Dataverse and the Web API, security role design, the sales, service, and finance workflows worth automating first, and how to build without creating upgrade debt.

Sage runs the finance function for a large share of mid-market companies, where teams are small and exception work eats the month. This guide covers integration across Sage Intacct and Sage 200, permission scoping, the workflows that pay first in a lean finance team, and the audit controls that keep the ledger defensible.