I started my career building workflow automations in tools like Microsoft Power Automate and Zapier, and later moved into building custom software. That experience always left me feeling like there was a tradeoff. Traditional automation tools were more accessible, but often tedious to configure, edit, and maintain. Custom software was far more flexible, but usually required engineering resources and expertise that is in short supply.
The tradeoff between accessible and powerful automation
No-code automation tools solved a real problem. They let non-technical people build workflows without writing code. But anyone who has spent time in a drag-and-drop builder knows the frustration: connecting nodes, configuring each step, handling edge cases through menus and dropdowns, and debugging by clicking through a flowchart trying to figure out where things went wrong.
The best automations have always looked more like software than flowcharts. They have conditional logic, error handling, data transformations, and decision points that are easier to express in language than in a visual builder. But software requires engineers, and engineering time is expensive and slow. Most teams can't justify building custom software for everyday operational workflows.
How AI closes the automation gap
That's changing. AI makes it possible to describe what you need in plain language and get working software back. Not a dumbed-down version. Not a visual approximation. Actual working automation that reads like a document, that you can review and modify, and that runs on a schedule or in response to events.
General Input is built from the ground up for this. You describe what you need to Geni, our AI agent: what to check, which tools to use, what should happen next, and what decisions matter. Geni turns that into a working automation.
What AI-written workflow automation looks like in practice
One example: a workflow that looks across open Salesforce opportunities, identifies deals that have been stuck in the same stage too long, researches recent company news, summarizes what may be affecting each account, generates a polished PDF report for each rep, and sends it directly in Slack.
Built in under 5 minutes for a few pennies per run. That's a workflow that would take days to build in a traditional automation tool and weeks if you were building it as custom software. The AI handles the implementation. You handle the intent.
Ready-to-use workflow templates across sales, ops, and customer success
Beyond building custom workflows from scratch, General Input has dozens of ready-to-use workflow templates. Connect your tools and activate them instantly. Templates cover sales prospecting, pipeline management, customer success monitoring, operations reporting, and more.
Each template is a real workflow, not a skeleton. They come with the logic, the integrations, and the decision points already wired up. You can use them as-is or tell Geni to modify them for your specific needs.
What's next for General Input
General Input is currently in beta. If you're an operator, RevOps leader, sales leader, or automation-minded team, we'd love to hear from you and learn what workflows matter most to your team.
We'll be sharing workflow demos, use cases, and behind-the-scenes builds regularly. The goal is simple: the people who understand broken processes should be the ones who fix them, and they shouldn't need an engineering team to do it.