CALGARY, Alberta - s4story -- New Idea Machine, a Calgary custom software and AI company, has published a first-person account of two working AI agents for business, written by the person who uses one of them every day.

The article, "AI Agents for Business: What Two Real Builds Taught Me," is authored by co-founder Rea Hailley and documents the company's own meeting assistant, Hermes Ear, alongside an AI concierge under construction for an Alberta nonprofit. Both agents run without sending data to the cloud, an approach the company uses for clients with confidentiality and compliance needs.

Hermes Ear is a small device that sits on Hailley's desk and listens to her meetings. It transcribes each conversation on the company's own hardware, extracts contacts and follow-up tasks, populates the company's CRM after human approval, and sends a daily email of outstanding tasks. Meeting audio never leaves the company's network, and the system's cloud AI cost is zero dollars.

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"Hermes is my second brain," said Hailley. "Some days I have nine or more meetings back to back. The first week it worked, I felt a huge weight lift."

The second build described in the article is an AI concierge for a nonprofit that supports other Alberta nonprofits. The agent answers community questions in grade-eight language, around the clock, and is deliberately contained: it cannot browse the internet and can only surface information that has been verified by a human first. Data stays on Canadian soil.

The article also addresses what AI automation actually costs for small and medium-sized businesses, with the company's AI agent projects starting at $10,000, and argues that the starting point is never the technology. "When a business owner calls us, I start with one question: what is the problem you are having?" writes Hailley.

A companion piece by co-founder and CTO Al Del Degan, "How Claude and I Built an AI Meeting Assistant Through Pure Trial and Error," documents the engineering behind Hermes Ear, including the failures.

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The full article is available at: https://newideamachine.com/digital-transformation-blog/ai-agents-for-business-two-real-builds/

About New Idea Machine New Idea Machine is a Calgary custom software and AI company that builds apps, automations, and AI agents that non-technical business owners own outright. Based in Calgary, serving business owners worldwide.

Media contact: Rea Hailley, Co-Founder New Idea Machine getstarted@newideamachine.com https://newideamachine.com