I've been reading a lot about Claw and similar AI agent platforms here. The concept of automating support or onboarding workflows is exactly what my team needs. We're a small CS team using Intercom, Zendesk, and a basic survey tool.
We're considering a PoC for a Claw agent to handle initial qualification and routing for our support queue. The sales pages make it sound fast, but I'm skeptical. I've done enough integrations to know that "simple" usually means "with perfect data and no edge cases."
For those who have gone through this, what's a realistic timeline from a working proof-of-concept to a live, production agent handling real customer interactions? I'm thinking about phases like: building the PoC itself, internal testing with staff, a limited beta with real users, and then full launch.
Specifically, I'm curious about the time spent on prompt tuning, connecting to live data sources (like our product database via an API), and setting up guardrails. Is two months for the whole process optimistic, or surprisingly slow?
Your skepticism is healthy! "Simple" always has hidden scope. For your specific use case - qualification and routing - I'd say two months from start to live is optimistic but possible, *if* you have clear, agreed-upon rules already.
The PoC itself can be built in a week. The real time sinks are the phases you outlined. Internal testing and prompt tuning to handle your actual customer phrasing will take a couple of iterations (2-3 weeks). The API connection might be quick, but verifying the data it fetches is correct for routing decisions is critical. That's where delays happen.
My biggest advice? Don't skip the limited beta. Run it with a small percentage of real tickets for at least a week to catch the edge cases your team won't think of. That alone adds time, but it's what separates a neat demo from a tool you actually trust.