This is a question clients ask me surprisingly often. And it's understandable — you have repetitive work eating your time, and you're wondering how to solve it. A part-time hire, or AI?
The honest answer: it depends. But let's break it down properly — with numbers, not marketing slogans.
When a part-time hire makes sense
A part-timer is the right choice if you need:
- Physical presence — greeting customers, staffing a shop, delivering goods
- Creative judgement in real time — handling unusual situations on the spot, reading a customer's mood
- Representing the company in person — at trade fairs, in meetings, in the field
- Manual work — packing, assembly, cleaning, physical handling of goods
In the Czech market a part-timer costs roughly €5–8/hour (Western Europe is typically double). At 20 hours a week that's €400–600 a month — plus the time for training, communication and oversight.
When AI makes sense
AI is the right choice if your workload is:
- Digital and repetitive — the same e-mails, the same questions, the same reports
- Around the clock — customers write on Sunday nights too
- Scalable — 10 inquiries today, 1,000 next month — AI handles it at no extra cost
- Data-heavy — invoice processing, data sorting, analysis
An AI customer-support agent costs a one-off €770–1,400 plus around €80–120 a month to run. At 200 inquiries a month that works out to roughly €0.40–0.60 per inquiry. A part-timer doing the same work (at 5 minutes per inquiry) costs €6.50–10 per inquiry.
The answer you're not expecting
The best companies don't use AI instead of people — they combine AI with people. AI handles the routine, humans handle the exceptions. AI answers at night, humans solve the complex cases during the day.
A part-timer at €500 a month spending 70% of their time answering the same questions is an expensive way to waste human potential. Let an AI agent do the routine — and let people do the things AI can't.
Want AI for your business? Write to me.
I build AI solutions for businesses — from chatbots to knowledge systems. I write about what actually works, no buzzwords. More about me →