Types of AI agents
An agent type is a combination of four things: the job, the tool set, the autonomy level (assist, act with confirmation, act) and the channel. Change any one and the cost and risk change with it. These nine pages describe the combinations that come up most in Zimbabwe; the comparison database lays twelve of them side by side with cost bands.
- 01 · WhatsApp · web · email
Customer support
Resolve tier-1 questions from documented policy; hand off everything else with a summary.
- 02 · WhatsApp · voice · web
Appointment booking
Offer slots, hold, confirm with an explicit yes, remind by template, reschedule.
- 03 · WhatsApp
WhatsApp agents
The channel constraints every agent in Zimbabwe inherits: windows, templates, media, rates.
- 04 · PSTN · SIP · voice notes
Voice agents
Phone conversations under a 1.5-second latency budget — where the phone line costs more than the model.
- 05 · WhatsApp · email · forms
Sales qualification & follow-up
Qualify inbound leads against a written rule, answer from the catalogue, book the demo.
- 06 · Email · internal
Finance agents
Invoice matching, EcoCash/Paynow reconciliation, FDMS-ready invoices — with a human posting.
- 07 · Teams · Slack · email
Internal operations
Policy answers, report drafts and approval chasing for staff; no channel fees.
- 08 · Email digest · internal
Research & monitoring
Track tenders, prices and regulations; summarise with mandatory citations.
- 09 · Mixed
By industry
Mining, agriculture, hospitality and logistics — four worked patterns.
Assist — the agent drafts or answers; a person acts. Act with confirmation — the agent performs reversible actions after an explicit customer or staff "yes". Act — the agent completes the action alone; reserved for low-stakes, idempotent, fully logged operations. Zimbabwe's data protection regime requires consent or legal authorisation for automated decisions with significant effect on a person, which in practice keeps most customer-facing agents at "act with confirmation" — see risks and governance.
12 rows in the database · cost bands are illustrative run costs at stated volumes · see costs for the price basis.