Use cases · Operations
Operations work with an AI worker doing the chasing
Ops is the function that holds the seams together. Most of that work is asking people things and writing down what they said.
What the worker does
Polaris gives an operations team an AI worker for the work that holds a company's seams together: writing down processes that only exist in someone's head, running a procurement comparison, watching stock levels against sales, keeping standard operating procedures accurate, and tracking dependencies between teams. The worker chases people in Slack and reports what it found. Operational decisions stay with the person accountable for them.
- Connections used
- Slack · Linear · Supabase · Drive
- Software cost
- $0, unlimited people
- Work cost
- ~$2 per human-hour delivered
- Who closes the task
- A human, always
Operations is the function most damaged by tool sprawl
An ops lead's job is to know the state of things across every other function. When tasks live in one tool, documents in a second, and the conversation where the decision was actually made in a third, that job becomes a full-time act of reassembly.
Polaris puts the three in one place, which removes some of the reassembly. The worker removes the rest: it goes and asks, it reads what the tools already said, and it writes the answer where the task is.
What it does not do is decide. An ops decision has consequences for people and money, and the person accountable makes it.
The five operations jobs covered here
Process documentation
Getting a process out of one person's head and into a doc, by interviewing them and reading the threads where it actually happens.
Vendor procurement
A comparison built from real quotes and public pricing, with the questions you have not asked yet listed.
Inventory tracking
Stock against sales, reorder points watched, and an alert that arrives before you are out.
SOP maintenance
Finding where the written procedure and the real procedure have drifted apart.
Cross-team coordination
Dependencies between teams tracked as items with owners and dates instead of as promises made in a meeting.
What each job needs and what comes back
| Job | Connections | Delivered as |
|---|---|---|
| Process documentation | Slack, Google Drive, Docs | A versioned process doc with open questions listed |
| Vendor procurement | web search, Gmail, Google Drive | A comparison table plus the unasked questions |
| Inventory tracking | Supabase, Stripe, Slack | A stock report with reorder flags and a days-of-cover figure |
| SOP maintenance | Docs, Slack, Google Drive | A drift report naming steps that no longer match reality |
| Cross-team coordination | Slack, Linear, Google Calendar | A dependency list with owners, dates and what is blocked |
The trade an ops team is actually making
Before
- State reassembled by hand from four tools every Monday
- Processes documented once, then never again
- Dependencies tracked as things people said in a meeting
- Chasing done by whoever is least embarrassed to chase
- A per-seat bill for each tool holding a piece of the picture
After
- Tasks, docs and the conversation in one workspace
- A worker that re-reads and re-asks on a schedule
- Dependencies as dated items with named owners
- Chasing done daily by something that never gets tired of it
- Free software, and a bill only for delivered work
Operations use cases in detail
Getting a process out of one person's head
The process exists. It is in someone's habits and in six months of Slack threads. A worker interviews and reads until it is on a page.
Procurement comparisons built from quotes, not from vendor websites
A worker researches the field, collects what the vendors actually told you, and lists the questions you have not asked yet. You choose.
Stock alerts that arrive before you are out
Polaris does not hold your inventory. A worker reads the table you already keep, compares it to what is selling, and raises a task when cover gets short.
Finding where the SOP and the real procedure came apart
Every written procedure starts accurate and drifts. A worker compares the document to how the work actually ran and reports the difference.
Dependencies as dated items, not as things people said in a meeting
Two teams agree something in a call. Neither writes it down. Three weeks later each is waiting for the other. A worker makes the promise a tracked item.
Questions people ask
+Do we need to move everything into Polaris first?
No. Workers read the connections you give them, so a team still running Linear and Slack can put an ops worker on top of both. The teams that get the most out of it tend to consolidate over time because the tasks, the docs and the deliveries end up in one place anyway.
+How many workers does an ops team need?
Start with one and give it one job for a fortnight. Hiring a worker takes about a minute in chat, so there is no reason to plan a roster in advance. Add a second when you can name the job it would own.
+What happens to the worker's output if we stop using it?
It is docs, tasks and files in your workspace. The deliveries are comments on tasks and the documents are versioned, so the record does not depend on the worker still being on the roster.
+Is there a per-seat cost for the ops team?
No seats and no tiers. Polaris is free for unlimited humans, tasks, workstreams and docs. The only bill is delivered work from AI workers at roughly $2 per human-equivalent hour, itemized on the work log.
Related
Getting a process out of one person's head
The process exists. It is in someone's habits and in six months of Slack threads. A worker interviews and reads until it is on a page.
Dependencies as dated items, not as things people said in a meeting
Two teams agree something in a call. Neither writes it down. Three weeks later each is waiting for the other. A worker makes the promise a tracked item.
Finding where the SOP and the real procedure came apart
Every written procedure starts accurate and drifts. A worker compares the document to how the work actually ran and reports the difference.
Hire an AI ops coordinator
It writes down how your company does things, so the answer stops living in whichever colleague happens to be on holiday.
Hire an AI project coordinator
The unglamorous half of running projects, done every week without anyone having to be the person who nags.
Tool sprawl
The expensive part is not the licences. It is that nothing is authoritative any more.
Connect Slack to Polaris
Six scopes, no access to direct messages, and a bot that only reads the channels somebody invited it into.
Polaris for small business
The jobs that never get done in a small business are not hard. There is simply nobody free to do them.