AI / 03 of 08
Email Triage
Whenever a new email lands, it is filed away in different folders and labels based on the content of the email and the email recipient. This keeps you at inbox zero and alerts you to important emails.
How it runs
Trigger
New mail arrives
Step 01
Classify intent and urgency
Routes — 4 ways
- Needs you
- Delegate
- FYI (no alert)
- Archive (no alert)
Only the needs-you path raises an alert
Step 02
Label and file
Step 03
Alert on the needs-you path only
What it is
Email triage reads every message as it arrives, works out what it wants, files it, and only interrupts you when it genuinely needs you.
You need this if your inbox is the queue your business runs through, you're the only one who can tell a contract from a newsletter, and every hour heads-down backs that queue up.
It shows up as slow replies to people who were ready to buy.
If you're already at inbox zero through willpower, this is the version that holds when volume triples.
What it does for you
The inbox shrinks to the handful of messages that need your judgement
so response time on real opportunities stops tracking your mood.
Important mail stops getting buried under volume
because the alert fires on what matters instead of on every arrival.
The filing rules become explicit
so a VA can take the inbox without a two-week handover.
How to build it
- List the five outcomes an email can have in your business: needs a decision, needs a reply from someone else, needs logging, needs reading later, needs nothing
- Classify to those outcomes rather than to topics, using one LLM call per message with the sender's history attached
- Label and file automatically, routing everything except "needs a decision" away from you
- Run it silently for a week and read its calls before you switch any alerting on
- Turn on alerts only for the category you'd have agreed with every single time
Want this one built into your business?
Thirty minutes, no deck. We map what you run today and tell you what it would take.