The AI Worker Catalog
A companion to The Agent Factory Thesis. A living reference of role-based AI Workers (Digital FTEs) across business verticals.
How to read this document
The Agent Factory Thesis defines the architecture: seven invariants, two layers, one factory. This catalog is the legislation that runs underneath. Where the thesis stays at the invariant layer — durable rules that do not change — this document commits to specifics: which Workers exist in each vertical, what they do, what they read and write, who supervises them, where humans verify, and which engines run them today.
This document is versioned. The thesis is constitutional. The catalog is operational. The catalog will change as the workforce reality changes; the thesis will not.
Three things to keep in mind across every vertical
First, the Worker is not the role. A "GTM Worker" is not a single AI employee that does all of GTM. Every vertical is unbundled into a fleet of role-based Workers, each focused enough to be specified, supervised, and verified. The unbundling is the point. A Worker that tries to do too much cannot be specified well, cannot be evaluated cleanly, and cannot be replaced without rebuilding the function.
Second, the human relocates — they do not disappear. Every vertical has a human supervisor: the GTM lead, the controller, the head of support, the engineering manager, the head of people, the general counsel. Their work shifts from execution (the middle 80%) to intent and verification (the first 10% and the final 10%). The catalog names this supervisor explicitly for each vertical because the supervisor's authority is what makes the Worker fleet legitimate.
Third, the system of record is the substrate. Every Worker reads from and writes to a durable store that survives the agent's session — the CRM for GTM, the general ledger for Finance, the ticketing system for Support, the code repository for Engineering. Without an SoR, agents hallucinate state, double-write transactions, and lose work between sessions. The catalog names the SoR up front for each vertical because it is the most under-discussed dependency in agent design.
The catalog template
Each vertical entry follows the same eight-field template:
- Definition — what this function does in plain language.
- System of Record — the authoritative store the Worker fleet runs against.
- Worker Fleet — the unbundled list of role-based Workers in this vertical.
- Authority Envelope — what the supervisor delegates, with the budgets and limits attached.
- Human Supervisor — who owns the spec, the budget, and the outcome.
- Verification Checkpoints — where humans review before action commits.
- Reference Engines — current engine choices per Worker class. Replaceable.
- Failure Modes — what goes wrong when an envelope is missing.
The reference engines named below are 2026 realizations, not invariants. The Worker fleet, the SoR, and the verification structure are durable. The engines will change.
The anatomy of a vertical
Before the six entries, here is the schema they all share. Every vertical follows the same architectural shape: a human supervisor at the top, a fleet of unbundled Workers in the middle, a system of record at the bottom, an authority envelope around the fleet, verification checkpoints to the side, and a per-Worker engine choice underneath.
1. Go-To-Market (GTM)
Definition. The combined sales, marketing, and revenue motion that turns prospects into paying customers. Encompasses outbound, inbound, sequencing, qualification, opportunity management, proposal, and close.
System of Record. The CRM — Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive. All lead state, contact state, account state, opportunity state, and activity history lives here. Workers read from and write to the CRM; nothing material is remembered in agent context windows.
Worker Fleet.
- Lead Enrichment Worker — adds firmographic, technographic, and intent data to inbound leads. Composes via MCP into Clay, Apollo, Clearbit, ZoomInfo.
- Outreach Sequencer Worker — drafts and dispatches multi-touch sequences across email, LinkedIn, and SMS. Tone, cadence, and channel mix per ICP.
- CRM Hygiene Worker — deduplicates contacts, normalizes account hierarchies, fixes ownership, fills missing fields, archives stale records.
- Pipeline Analyst Worker — reads opportunity stage history, flags stalled deals, surfaces conversion anomalies, generates weekly forecast deltas against quota.
- Proposal Generator Worker — produces tailored proposals from the opportunity record, product catalog, and pricing rules.
- Demo Customizer Worker — assembles tailored product demos from a demo library based on prospect ICP and stated needs.
- Attribution Worker — reconciles touchpoint data across channels and writes attribution outcomes back to the CRM.
Authority Envelope. Outreach Sequencer can send up to N emails per ICP per day with budget capped at $X/month across sequencing tools. Proposal Generator can quote within pre-approved discount bands; anything outside the band requires human approval. Pipeline Analyst is read-only on stage fields; can flag but cannot move a deal without human sign-off. Lead Enrichment has a per-record cost ceiling.
Human Supervisor. Head of GTM / CRO / VP Sales. Owns the spec for ICP definitions, sequencing strategy, discount policy, and forecast methodology. Verifies forecast outputs weekly and proposal drafts above a deal-size threshold.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) Outbound sequences approved before launch, per campaign. (2) Proposals above a deal-size threshold reviewed by humans before send. (3) Weekly forecast review with the Pipeline Worker's output as input, not output. (4) Quarterly attribution review for channel mix decisions.
Reference Engines. Outreach Sequencer and CRM Hygiene run on Dapr Agents (durability and idempotency are critical when writing to the SoR). Proposal Generator runs on Claude Managed Agents (long-context document work, tailored prose). Pipeline Analyst runs on OpenAI Agents SDK or Claude Managed Agents. Lead Enrichment runs on Dapr Agents.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the Outreach Worker becomes a spam cannon and the company gets domain-blacklisted. Without an SoR contract, the Pipeline Worker hallucinates deal stages and the forecast becomes fiction. Without verification, the Proposal Worker quotes outside policy and revenue gets discounted by accident.
2. Finance
Definition. The function responsible for the close, accounts receivable, accounts payable, financial planning and analysis, tax, and statutory reporting.
System of Record. The general ledger — NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero, SAP, Oracle. All journal entries, account balances, and period closes live here. The SoR is also legally significant: auditors, tax authorities, and regulators read from it.
Worker Fleet.
- Close Worker — runs the period-close checklist: accruals, reclasses, intercompany eliminations, journal entry drafting from source documents.
- AR Worker — issues invoices, applies cash, ages receivables, drafts dunning sequences.
- AP Worker — receives vendor invoices, matches them to POs and receipts, schedules payment runs within terms.
- FP&A Worker — produces variance analysis against budget, drafts management reports, generates scenario models from assumption inputs.
- Reconciliation Worker — ties bank accounts, credit cards, and sub-ledger balances back to the GL.
- Tax Worker — drafts indirect tax filings, supports income tax provision, flags transactions that need tax review.
- Audit Trail Worker — produces auditor-ready packages: workpapers, tie-outs, supporting documentation pulled from source systems.
Authority Envelope. AP Worker can schedule payment runs up to a per-vendor and per-batch ceiling; anything above requires controller approval. Close Worker can post journal entries up to a materiality threshold; anything above requires human review before posting. Tax Worker drafts but does not file. FP&A Worker is read-only on actuals; can write to scenario models.
Human Supervisor. Controller / VP Finance / CFO. Owns the spec for accounting policies, materiality thresholds, the close calendar, and statutory filing approvals. Certifies the period close.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) Every journal entry above the materiality threshold is reviewed before posting. (2) Period close is certified by the controller before books are locked. (3) Statutory filings are reviewed by a human tax practitioner before submission. (4) Auditor packages are reviewed by the controller before release.
Reference Engines. Close Worker, AR Worker, AP Worker, and Reconciliation Worker run on Dapr Agents — finance demands durability, idempotency, and replayability. FP&A Worker and Tax Worker run on Claude Managed Agents (analytical and document-heavy work). Audit Trail Worker runs on Dapr Agents.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the AP Worker double-pays vendors. Without an SoR contract, the Close Worker drifts the books from reality. Without a materiality threshold, every JE blocks on a human and the close never finishes. Without verification of statutory filings, the company files something it cannot defend.
3. Customer Support
Definition. The function that resolves customer issues across channels, manages escalation, and feeds learnings back into product and documentation.
System of Record. The ticketing system — Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, HelpScout — paired with the knowledge base. Ticket state, conversation history, customer history, and resolution outcomes live here.
Worker Fleet.
- Triage Worker — reads inbound tickets, classifies by topic and severity, routes to the right queue, sets initial priority.
- Resolution Worker — answers known issues directly using the KB; drafts replies for human review on novel ones.
- Escalation Worker — recognizes when a ticket exceeds first-line scope and routes to the right specialist or engineering team with a structured handoff.
- KB Curation Worker — identifies high-volume topics with no KB article, drafts new articles, updates stale ones, retires obsolete content.
- CSAT Analysis Worker — reads survey responses and ticket transcripts, identifies satisfaction drivers, surfaces patterns to leadership.
- Macro Generation Worker — proposes new canned responses based on recurring resolved-ticket patterns.
- Voice-of-Customer Worker — synthesizes ticket themes into product feedback packages for the product team.
Authority Envelope. Resolution Worker can auto-respond to tickets matching pre-approved patterns up to a confidence threshold; anything below routes to a human. Macro Generation Worker drafts but does not deploy macros without human approval. KB Curation Worker drafts articles in a staging state; humans publish.
Human Supervisor. Head of Support / Director of Customer Experience. Owns the spec for escalation policies, KB editorial standards, severity definitions, and CSAT targets.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) Auto-responses below a confidence threshold are reviewed before send. (2) New KB articles reviewed before publication. (3) New macros approved before deployment. (4) Weekly review of escalation patterns to update routing rules.
Reference Engines. Triage Worker and Resolution Worker run on Claude Managed Agents (conversational, context-heavy). KB Curation Worker runs on Claude Managed Agents. CSAT Analysis Worker and Voice-of-Customer Worker run on OpenAI Agents SDK or Claude Managed Agents (analytical synthesis). Macro Generation Worker runs on Dapr Agents.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the Resolution Worker confidently misanswers and customers churn. Without verification, the KB Curation Worker pollutes the knowledge base with hallucinated guidance. Without escalation thresholds, hard tickets sit in first-line queues until they become complaints.
4. Engineering
Definition. The function that designs, ships, operates, and maintains the company's software systems.
System of Record. The code repository (GitHub, GitLab) is the canonical SoR for source. The CI/CD platform is the SoR for build and deploy state. The observability stack (Datadog, Grafana, Honeycomb) is the SoR for runtime state. Each Worker writes to whichever store is canonical for its domain.
Worker Fleet.
- Code Review Worker — reviews pull requests for correctness, style, security issues, and test coverage. Comments inline.
- Refactor Worker — executes pre-specified refactors across the codebase: rename, extract, restructure, dependency upgrade.
- Deploy Worker — promotes builds through environments, runs smoke tests, executes rollouts and rollbacks within policy.
- Test Generation Worker — produces unit, integration, and end-to-end tests for new and untested code paths.
- Incident Response Worker — pulls together telemetry, drafts incident timelines, identifies likely root causes, drafts post-mortems.
- Dependency Update Worker — opens PRs for security patches and minor version bumps, runs the test suite, requests review.
- Doc Generation Worker — produces and updates technical documentation from code, ADRs, and design specs.
- On-Call Triage Worker — first responder to alerts, classifies severity, gathers context, escalates to humans for action.
Authority Envelope. Deploy Worker can promote to staging without approval; production deploys require human gate. Refactor Worker operates on a pre-approved refactor spec, never freelances. Dependency Update Worker can merge patches that pass a green test suite within a pre-approved set of dependencies; major versions require human review. Incident Response Worker has read-only access to systems by default.
Human Supervisor. Engineering Manager / Tech Lead / Head of Platform. Owns the spec for code style, deploy policy, test coverage targets, refactor priorities, and incident response runbooks.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) PRs reviewed by humans before merge to main. (2) Production deploys gated by human approval. (3) Incident commander is always a human; the Incident Response Worker assists, never leads. (4) Major dependency upgrades reviewed before merge.
Reference Engines. Code Review Worker, Refactor Worker, and Test Generation Worker run on Claude Managed Agents (Claude Code is purpose-built for this and is the right default). Deploy Worker, Dependency Update Worker, and On-Call Triage Worker run on Dapr Agents (durability and retry semantics matter for ops). Incident Response Worker runs on Claude Managed Agents. Triggering for coding-agent events runs through Claude Code Routines; everything else runs through Inngest.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the Deploy Worker ships unreviewed code to production. Without an SoR contract, the Incident Response Worker reasons from stale telemetry. Without human gate on production deploys, regressions ship at 3 a.m. on Saturday.
5. Human Resources (People)
Definition. The function that sources, hires, onboards, develops, and retains the workforce — both human and, increasingly, AI.
System of Record. The applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby) for candidates. The HRIS (Rippling, Workday, BambooHR) for employees. The performance management system (Lattice, 15Five) for review state. Each Worker reads and writes the right store for its scope.
Worker Fleet.
- Sourcing Worker — searches candidate databases, drafts personalized outreach, schedules screening calls.
- Screening Worker — reviews applications against the role spec, scores fit, drafts shortlists for hiring managers.
- Scheduling Worker — coordinates interview loops across panels, candidates, and conference rooms.
- Onboarding Worker — provisions accounts, schedules first-week meetings, delivers training assets, tracks checklist completion.
- Performance Tracking Worker — gathers performance signal from systems, drafts review packages, surfaces flight risks.
- Compensation Benchmarking Worker — pulls compensation data, drafts ranges by role and level, flags anomalies.
- Engagement Worker — runs pulse surveys, analyzes responses, surfaces themes to managers.
- Policy Q&A Worker — answers employee questions about benefits, leave, and policy from the HR knowledge base.
Authority Envelope. Sourcing Worker can send outreach within pre-approved templates and a daily volume cap. Screening Worker shortlists but does not reject without human review. Scheduling Worker can book within pre-approved time windows. Onboarding Worker provisions only pre-approved tools. Compensation Benchmarking Worker drafts ranges; humans approve.
Human Supervisor. Head of People / VP Talent / CHRO. Owns the spec for role definitions, hiring rubrics, compensation philosophy, performance criteria, and policy.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) Shortlists reviewed by hiring managers before any interview. (2) Offer details require human sign-off before extension. (3) Performance reviews reviewed by managers before delivery. (4) Sourcing outreach templates reviewed quarterly. (5) Compensation ranges approved before publication.
Reference Engines. Sourcing Worker, Screening Worker, and Policy Q&A Worker run on Claude Managed Agents. Scheduling Worker, Onboarding Worker, and Engagement Worker run on Dapr Agents (durability matters; people notice when an onboarding step gets skipped). Performance Tracking Worker and Compensation Benchmarking Worker run on Claude Managed Agents.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the Sourcing Worker sends outreach that violates EEO standards or company brand. Without verification, the Screening Worker filters candidates on biased proxies. Without an SoR contract, the Onboarding Worker provisions accounts in the wrong systems for the wrong people.
6. Legal
Definition. The function that drafts, reviews, redlines, and manages contracts; advises on risk; and ensures regulatory compliance.
System of Record. The contract lifecycle management system (Ironclad, DocuSign CLM, LinkSquares) for contract state. The matter management system for litigation and advice. The compliance register for regulatory obligations. Each Worker writes to the right store for its scope.
Worker Fleet.
- Contract Review Worker — reads inbound contracts and produces a structured risk summary against the company's playbook.
- Redline Worker — proposes redlines based on the playbook and standard fallback positions.
- Intake Worker — handles the legal request queue: classifies, prioritizes, routes, and gathers required information from requesters.
- NDA Worker — handles the high-volume, low-risk end of contracting: NDA review, redline, and dispatch end-to-end within policy.
- Vendor Risk Assessment Worker — reviews vendor security questionnaires, contracts, and posture; produces risk recommendations.
- Compliance Monitoring Worker — tracks regulatory changes, maps them to internal obligations, surfaces required updates.
- Discovery Worker — supports litigation discovery: document review, privilege flagging, production drafting.
Authority Envelope. NDA Worker can fully execute NDAs within the playbook; anything outside the playbook escalates. Redline Worker proposes positions but does not send to counterparty without human counsel review. Vendor Risk Assessment Worker scores but does not approve. Compliance Monitoring Worker flags but does not commit the company to a regulatory position.
Human Supervisor. General Counsel / Head of Legal / Deputy GC. Owns the spec for the contract playbook, risk thresholds, regulatory positions, and litigation strategy.
Verification Checkpoints. (1) Every redline above NDA-tier reviewed by human counsel before counter-signing. (2) Regulatory positions require human counsel approval before commitment. (3) Discovery production reviewed before release. (4) Playbook updates reviewed by the GC quarterly.
Reference Engines. Contract Review Worker, Redline Worker, Vendor Risk Assessment Worker, and Compliance Monitoring Worker run on Claude Managed Agents (long-context document work; precise legal language). NDA Worker runs on Dapr Agents (the only Worker in this fleet that executes end-to-end and needs durability). Discovery Worker runs on Claude Managed Agents.
Failure Modes. Without an envelope, the Redline Worker commits the company to a position the GC would never approve. Without verification, the Compliance Monitoring Worker misclassifies regulatory obligations. Without an SoR contract, contracts get signed in two systems with two terms, and the legal team finds out at renewal.
Cross-vertical Workers
Some Workers do not belong to a single vertical. They serve every function and are best built once and shared.
- Document Generation Worker — produces formatted documents (PDFs, slides, spreadsheets) from structured inputs. Used by GTM (proposals), Finance (audit packages), Legal (contracts), HR (offer letters).
- Notification Worker — sends authoritative notifications across email, Slack, SMS, and push. Used by every vertical.
- Translation Worker — translates content between languages with domain-aware vocabulary. Used by GTM, Support, HR, Legal.
- Meeting Worker — joins meetings, transcribes, drafts summaries, extracts action items. Used by every vertical.
- Data Extraction Worker — pulls structured data from unstructured inputs (PDFs, emails, images). Used by Finance, Legal, HR, Support.
These cross-vertical Workers are infrastructure. They should be built once, governed by Paperclip, and called by Workers in any vertical that needs them. They are not less important than vertical Workers — they are the connective tissue.
Frontier verticals
The six verticals above are where the architecture is mature enough to commit to specifics in v0.1 of this catalog. Several others are clearly in scope but earn their own treatment in future versions.
- RevOps — the cross-functional operational backbone shared by GTM, Customer Success, and Finance. RevOps Workers manage the data pipelines, attribution models, and reporting layer that the three customer-facing functions rely on.
- Procurement — the cleanest near-term demonstration of agents-as-economic-actors. Procurement Workers will negotiate, contract, and pay vendors within authority envelopes set by humans, using ACP, AP2, x402, and MPP rails.
- Customer Success — adjacent to Support but with different KPIs (retention, expansion, health) and a different SoR (the customer health platform).
- Marketing — separable from GTM at scale: brand, content, demand generation, and lifecycle marketing each support distinct Worker fleets.
- Product — research, prioritization, spec drafting, release notes, and roadmap maintenance are all role-based Worker territory.
- Data & Analytics — pipeline maintenance, anomaly detection, dashboard generation, ad-hoc analysis. Sits underneath every other vertical.
- Compliance & Risk — adjacent to Legal but distinct: enterprise risk register, control testing, audit response, regulatory reporting.
These will be added to future versions of this catalog as their Worker fleets and verification patterns stabilize.
A note on physical Workers
The thesis closes by naming embodied AI Workers as a trajectory. When that frontier arrives, this catalog will gain new verticals: warehouse operations, last-mile logistics, manufacturing floor operations, autonomous vehicles. The architecture does not change — the same authority envelopes, the same manager API, the same systems of record. The compute layer adds a body. The catalog will reflect that when the time comes.
The Factory builds the Company; the Company employs Workers; the Workers run against the system of record. The thesis names the rule. This catalog names the Workers.