Building Your First AI Workflow

Ready to build your first AI automation? This step-by-step guide walks you through creating an AI workflow from start to finish.

Jay

— 3 min read

Introduction: From Manual to Magical

Imagine a process that currently takes you an hour every day, happening automatically while you focus on more important work. That is the power of AI workflows—and building your first one is easier than you think.

In this guide, I will walk you through building your first AI workflow step by step. By the end, you will have a working automation that saves you time immediately.

What is an AI Workflow?

An AI workflow is a sequence of automated steps that use artificial intelligence to process information, make decisions, and take actions without human intervention.

Simple example: Email arrives → AI reads and categorises it → If urgent, alert sent to Slack → If routine, draft response created → Human reviews and sends.

Choosing Your First Workflow

For your first workflow, choose something:

  • You do repeatedly (at least weekly)
  • Has clear inputs and outputs
  • Is relatively simple (3-5 steps max)
  • Would have immediate impact if automated

Good first workflow candidates:

  • Processing form submissions
  • Sorting and responding to routine emails
  • Generating weekly reports from data
  • Social media content creation

Our Example: The Customer Enquiry Workflow

Let us build a workflow that handles incoming customer enquiries:

  1. New email arrives from contact form
  2. AI analyses the content and categorises intent
  3. Based on category, take appropriate action:
    • Sales enquiry → Create CRM lead + notify sales team
    • Support question → Search knowledge base + draft response
    • Complaint → Escalate to manager immediately
  4. Log everything in spreadsheet for tracking

Step 1: Map Your Current Process

Before automating, document your current process:

  • What triggers the process? (Email, form submission, scheduled time)
  • What information is needed?
  • What decisions are made?
  • What actions are taken?
  • What are the outputs?

Draw this out as a flowchart. Visualising the process reveals automation opportunities.

Step 2: Choose Your Tools

No-Code Workflow Builders

  • ZapFlow (ZappingAI): UK-focused, AI-native workflow automation
  • Zapier: Connects 5,000+ apps with AI features
  • Make (Integromat): Visual workflow builder with powerful features
  • Microsoft Power Automate: Best for Microsoft ecosystem users

For our example, we will use ZapFlow for its AI-native capabilities and UK support.

Step 3: Set Up the Trigger

Every workflow starts with a trigger—an event that starts the automation.

For our customer enquiry workflow:

  1. Create a new workflow in your chosen platform
  2. Select trigger: "New email in Gmail" or "New form submission"
  3. Connect your email/form account
  4. Test the trigger to ensure it detects new items

Step 4: Add AI Analysis

Now we add AI to understand the incoming enquiry:

  1. Add an AI action: "Classify text"
  2. Connect to an AI service (OpenAI, Anthropic, or built-in AI)
  3. Configure the classification:
    • Input: Email subject + body
    • Categories: "Sales", "Support", "Complaint", "General"

Test with sample emails to ensure accurate classification.

Step 5: Add Conditional Logic

Based on the AI classification, we want different actions:

  1. Add a "Router" or "Switch" action
  2. Create paths for each category:
    • Path 1: If category = "Sales"
    • Path 2: If category = "Support"
    • Path 3: If category = "Complaint"

Step 6: Configure Each Path

Sales Path

  1. Extract contact information from email
  2. Create new lead in CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)
  3. Send notification to sales team via Slack/Teams

Support Path

  1. Search knowledge base for relevant articles
  2. Use AI to draft a response using found information
  3. Create support ticket with draft response
  4. Notify support team

Complaint Path

  1. Flag as high priority
  2. Send immediate alert to manager via SMS and email
  3. Create escalation ticket

Step 7: Add Logging

Track all workflow activity:

  1. Add action to append to Google Sheets/Airtable
  2. Log: Date, sender, category, action taken, status

Step 8: Test Thoroughly

Before activating:

  1. Run test with sample data for each category
  2. Verify all actions execute correctly
  3. Check that notifications reach the right people
  4. Review logged data for accuracy
  5. Test edge cases (empty fields, unusual formatting)

Step 9: Deploy and Monitor

  1. Activate the workflow
  2. Monitor closely for the first week
  3. Review logs daily
  4. Gather feedback from team members
  5. Refine and improve based on real usage

Expected Results

With this workflow implemented:

  • Response time to enquiries drops from hours to minutes
  • No enquiry falls through the cracks
  • Sales team gets immediate notification of hot leads
  • Support team has draft responses ready to review
  • Management immediately knows about complaints
  • You save 5-10 hours per week on email processing

Next Steps: Expanding Your Automation

Once comfortable with this workflow, consider:

  • Adding sentiment analysis to detect frustrated customers
  • Auto-generating weekly reports from your logs
  • Integrating with your calendar for automatic scheduling
  • Building similar workflows for other repetitive processes

Conclusion

You have now built your first AI workflow. This foundation can be expanded to automate increasingly complex processes across your business.

For UK businesses looking to accelerate their AI automation journey, ZappingAI provides ZapFlow—an AI-native workflow platform with pre-built templates and expert support to get you automating faster.

The question is no longer whether you can automate—it is what you will automate next.

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