Compare Digital Employee and outsourcing against the work covered, the outputs delivered and the handling of exceptions. Outsourcing can include people, AI and automation; Digital Employee is also a service entrusted to a provider. The labels can therefore overlap. The useful choice concerns what is delivered, who checks it and what work remains with your team.
Write the same deliverable before comparing proposals
One provider offers to manage the administration inbox; another offers to prepare cases for review. Comparing their monthly charges alone does not compare the same work. The first might include contact with clients, while the second might stop before sending anything. Even the meaning of a “completed case” can differ.
Define inputs, outputs and the assignment boundary in a checkable sentence. For example: “For every enquiry received through the authorised channel, deliver a record linked to its documents, showing status, missing items, an owner and the next step.” Then specify who may communicate externally and who decides when a case is uncertain.
Outsourcing describes who you entrust with the work; it does not require the provider to do everything manually. A proposal may combine operators, AI and automation. The Digital Employee service likewise needs to be described within its actual scope. How it works sets out the approach to assessment, rules and testing without establishing universal availability of every possible integration.
A worksheet to complete with each provider
Copy this worksheet for each proposal. Record actual commitments and evidence in your answers, rather than general assurances; add the relevant document or quotation reference. The guidance in the table explains what to collect and how to recognise a difference in scope.
Scroll the table horizontally to read every column.
| Area | Answer to record for each proposal | Difference to clarify |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Included tasks, the deliverable and excluded steps. | Is a draft being incorrectly equated with an approved case? |
| Expertise | Which cases need skilled operators, and who provides them. | Does the service resolve the case or return it to your team? |
| Control | Access, authority, approvals and the ability to stop work. | Who may change a record or contact a client? |
| Variation | Accepted formats, enquiry types and included exceptions. | Are frequent variations inside or outside the assignment? |
| Quality | Acceptance criteria, evidence and correction arrangements. | Who carries out review and rework? |
| Volumes | Normal volume, peaks, limits and handling of excess work. | What stays in a queue, and who notices? |
| Agreed response times | Operating hours, priorities and when the timing starts and ends. | Does the commitment cover acknowledgement or resolution? |
| Exceptions | Recipient, context provided, resumption and case closure. | Does an alert finish the provider's work while creating internal work? |
| Exit | Handover of data, open cases and instructions; access revocation. | Can your team resume without reconstructing every case? |
If an answer remains uncertain, record the condition to resolve before choosing. Narrowing the initial assignment may be sufficient; every difference need not disqualify a provider. The provider selection guide explores contractual and technical evidence, while this worksheet keeps the comparison focused on the work delivered.
A batch of 100 cases reveals where work remains
Consider a synthetic example: a batch of 100 document requests needs preparing for administrative review. After checking against the checklist, 80 follow the standard path, 12 lack a required document and eight contain conflicting information. The groups are distinct: 80 + 12 + 8 = 100. These are not expected performance rates for the service.
Set the same deliverable for both proposals: all 100 cases must appear in the register, with source references and a next step. The 80 standard cases can reach the reviewer; the 12 incomplete cases must show what is missing; the eight ambiguous cases need a decision. No case disappears from the count because it has not been resolved.
An outsourcing arrangement might include operators tasked with requesting missing documents and preparing clarification within agreed rules. A Digital Employee proposal might cover preparing or sending authorised standard requests and handing ambiguous cases to the nominated person. These are illustrative configurations to check in the proposals, rather than automatic inclusions.
A mixed model could assign routine collection to the service and clarification to an internal or external operator. Specify who follows up the 12 expected replies and who has authority over the eight ambiguous cases. A total of “80 processed” does not explain what happens to the remaining 20.
Measure the work returned to your team
Include setup, the agreed recurring fee or other charge, supervision, corrections, maintenance and variable costs only where applicable. Use the guide to cost structure to separate the items. Do not assume a per-case price includes every exception or a recurring fee excludes them: request a written answer.
In the illustrative batch, record provider effort, the internal owner's effort and time spent waiting for replies separately. Less data collection can coexist with substantial review work. If your objective is to release administrative capacity, you need to understand the net workload, rather than simply how many requests are taken on.
Choose a model you can operate and take back
Establish who retains operating instructions, case status and information about completed steps. If the service changes or ends, the work needs an owner. The NIST AI RMF 1.0, GOVERN 6 also addresses dependencies on third-party software and data: using a provider does not remove the need to manage them.
Finally, compare proposals against a representative group of cases using the same acceptance criteria. The guide to measuring a pilot helps separate accepted results, waiting and rework. You may choose an operational service, a bounded delegation or a combination. The arrangement should make clear who moves every case to its next step.