Return on Agents — Boreal Software

Decision queue

What needs a decision

Ranked by dollars at stake — act, snooze, or defer to sponsor

Promotion ready

Ready to promote to Automate

$9.4k/mo

Code Review Assist · override 9.2% (below 10 for ~4 wks)

Kill review

Kill decision overdue

-$20/mo

Churn Save Outreach · adoption 12% · sponsor CS

Intake gate

2 use cases waiting at the gate

2

1 missing a baseline · 1 no sponsor sign-off

Portfolio economics

Is the program paying for itself?

Five numbers the CFO checks first — status colored, thresholds baked in

Net value / mo

$157k

+$3.2k · 2% vs prior 30d

Median payback

2.0mo

threshold · 6 mo

Weighted adoption

58%

active / eligible

Verdict mix

8/5/1

SCALE / HOLD / KILL

Program ROI

+492%

$1.70M returned · $287k invested

The 4A view

The decision quadrant

Adoption × net value per run. Threshold lines are the policy — geometry decides.

Showing 14 of 14 agents

SCALEHOLDKILL

Churn Save Outreach

Customer Support · Assist

KILL

Adopt

12%

Net/mo

-$20

Payback

—

Adoption below 20% floor past day 90

Renewal Quote Generator

Finance · Autonomy

SCALE

Adopt

88%

Net/mo

$58k

Payback

0.8mo

Payback 0.8mo (<6) · override 2% (<10)

Field Dispatch Optimizer

Ops · Accelerate

SCALE

Adopt

74%

Net/mo

$18k

Payback

1.6mo

Payback 1.6mo (<6) · override 5% (<10)

Security Alert Triage

IT/Security · Automate

SCALE

Adopt

68%

Net/mo

$15k

Payback

1.7mo

Payback 1.7mo (<6) · override 7% (<10)

Invoice Coding

Finance · Accelerate

SCALE

Adopt

92%

Net/mo

$11k

Payback

1.7mo

Payback 1.7mo (<6) · override 3% (<10)

Support Triage

Customer Support · Automate

SCALE

Adopt

78%

Net/mo

$9.7k

Payback

2.5mo

Payback 2.5mo (<6) · override 6% (<10)

Code Review Assist

Engineering · Assist

SCALE

Adopt

71%

Net/mo

$9.4k

Payback

1.3mo

Payback 1.3mo (<6) · override 9% (<10)

Knowledge Search

Ops · Accelerate

SCALE

Adopt

83%

Net/mo

$7.1k

Payback

2.8mo

Payback 2.8mo (<6) · override 4% (<10)

Meeting Summarizer

Ops · Automate

SCALE

Adopt

54%

Net/mo

$2.6k

Payback

2.3mo

Payback 2.3mo (<6) · override 9% (<10)

Contract First-Pass

Legal · Assist

HOLD

Adopt

64%

Net/mo

$15k

Payback

2.0mo

Override 18% ≥10% — trust bar not met

Sales Email Drafter

Sales · Assist

HOLD

Adopt

40%

Net/mo

$6.1k

Payback

1.5mo

Override 22% ≥10% — trust bar not met

RFP Answer Draft

Sales · Assist

HOLD

Adopt

22%

Net/mo

$2.5k

Payback

6.7mo

Override 24% ≥10% — trust bar not met

Lead Scoring

Marketing · Automate

HOLD

Adopt

35%

Net/mo

$2.5k

Payback

6.1mo

Override 12% ≥10% — trust bar not met

Onboarding Answers

HR · Automate

HOLD

Adopt

24%

Net/mo

$589

Payback

23.8mo

Payback 23.8mo ≥6 — not yet economic

Maturity ladder

Where the portfolio sits on the ladder

Per-run economics rise up the ladder — that's the whole point of graduating

1 / 4

5 agents

Assist

Human drafts, agent helps. Every output reviewed.

Net / mo$33k

Median value / run$4.20

Code Review Assist promoting in ~7d

Graduates to Automate when criteria met

→

2 / 4

5 agents

Automate

Agent drafts, human approves. Review by exception.

Net / mo$30k

Median value / run$1.10

Graduates to Accelerate when criteria met

→

3 / 4

3 agents

Accelerate

Agent executes routine cases. Human handles edge cases.

Net / mo$35k

Median value / run$3.10

Graduates to Autonomy when criteria met

→

4 / 4

1 agent

Autonomy

Agent executes end-to-end within a defined guardrail.

Net / mo$58k

Median value / run$62.00

Top rung

Scorecard

Every agent, one line of truth

Click any row to open its intake one-pager. Verdicts computed, not voted.

Agent	Function	Stage	Adopt %	Runs/wk	Override %	Cost/run	Value/run	Net/mo	Payback	Verdict^†
Renewal Quote Generator	Finance	Autonomy	88%	219	1.9%	$0.35	$62.00	$58k	0.8mo	SCALE
Field Dispatch Optimizer	Ops	Accelerate	74%	332	4.9%	$0.14	$12.40	$18k	1.6mo	SCALE
Contract First-Pass	Legal	Assist	64%	95	18.0%	$1.10	$38.00	$15k	2.0mo	HOLD
Security Alert Triage	IT/Security	Automate	68%	958	7.4%	$0.18	$3.80	$15k	1.7mo	SCALE
Invoice Coding	Finance	Accelerate	92%	843	3.2%	$0.18	$3.10	$11k	1.7mo	SCALE
Support Triage	Customer Support	Automate	78%	1,338	5.9%	$0.22	$1.90	$9.7k	2.5mo	SCALE
Code Review Assist Promotes in 7d if trend holds	Engineering	Assist→7d	71%	558	9.2%	$0.30	$4.20	$9.4k	1.3mo	SCALE
Knowledge Search	Ops	Accelerate	83%	3,150	4.0%	$0.03	$0.55	$7.1k	2.8mo	SCALE
Sales Email Drafter	Sales	Assist	40%	626	21.6%	$0.15	$2.40	$6.1k	1.5mo	HOLD
Meeting Summarizer	Ops	Automate	54%	729	8.6%	$0.12	$0.95	$2.6k	2.3mo	SCALE
RFP Answer Draft	Sales	Assist	22%	74	23.7%	$0.55	$8.50	$2.5k	6.7mo	HOLD
Lead Scoring	Marketing	Automate	35%	2,111	11.9%	$0.05	$0.32	$2.5k	6.1mo	HOLD
Onboarding Answers Recovered past 20% line	HR	Automate	24%	136	8.3%	$0.10	$1.10	$589	23.8mo	HOLD
Churn Save Outreach Past kill threshold	Customer Support	Assist	12%	47	30.6%	$0.40	$0.30	-$20	—	KILL

† Verdict is computed, not voted. Rules: KILL if adoption < 20% at day 90 or net ≤ $0 past day 90 · SCALE if payback < 6 mo and override < 10% · else HOLD.

Intake

What's waiting to be built

Queued use cases. No baseline, no build.

Download blank intake template

Use case	Sponsor	Primary metric	Baseline	Thresholds	Gate
Expense Audit Agent Finance	Priya Datta CFO	Cost avoided ($ / week reclaimed from mis-coded expenses)	Measured 6-week audit sample · $18k/wk avoidable · dated 2026-05-30	Agreed	Cleared Cleared to build next sprint
Exec Email Ghostwriter Marketing	Owen Marsh VP Marketing	Hours returned (drafting minutes saved / week)	Missing No baseline measured — sponsor estimated ‘about an hour a day’	Pending	Blocked No baseline, no build

Ledger

What we killed, and why

A record of retired agents. Kept short. Kept honest.

Agent	Function	Lifespan	Invested	Threshold that fired	Lesson
Ticket Auto-Close	Customer Support	112d	$34k	Override 38% > 12% quality bar	"Auto-action before trust is earned burns trust."
Blog Draft Generator	Marketing	95d	$11k	Adoption 9% < 20% floor at day 90	"Nobody asked for it."

What earns, what stalls, what dies.

What needs a decision

Is the program paying for itself?

The decision quadrant

Where the portfolio sits on the ladder

Every agent, one line of truth

What's waiting to be built

What we killed, and why