How Basis, Clay and Exa use agents in everyday workflows

01 What happened

OpenAI describes three uses of agents: employee onboarding at Basis, account research at Clay, and integration work at Exa Labs. Each example identifies a repeatable task and a point for human judgment.

02 Key details

• Basis reduced employee onboarding from two hours to 30 minutes by formalizing the task as a reusable skill managed by HR.
• Clay saves one GTM engineer approximately one hour of nightly inbox triage by using subagents to coordinate account context and next actions.
• Exa Labs delegates integration monitoring, PR creation, and testing to agents, while human staff retain final authority over priorities and shipping.

03 Why it matters

The examples suggest a practical pattern: define a repeatable task, give the agent relevant context, and keep a person responsible for decisions. The reported time savings come from the companies involved.

04 Who it matters to

Operations directors, technical leads and business process automation managers.