AI Agents for Business Automation Beyond Coding

Most agent orchestrators are built for software development. amux includes a full business ops stack — CRM, Gmail API email, Playwright browser, notes, and scheduler — all accessible to AI agents through a single REST API. Run your business, not just your codebase.

The Business Ops Stack

amux is built on a single Python server with a unified SQLite database. Every capability below is a REST endpoint at $AMUX_URL — the same URL your AI coding agents use for session management, the kanban board, and the Messages tab. No second platform, no separate automation service.

CRM: Contact Management

The amux CRM stores contacts with auto-assigned PPL-N IDs and full interaction history. AI agents access it through the REST API or the amux crm CLI.

What agents do with CRM

• After a conference: "Search my inbox for the last 7 days, extract every person I emailed, add them as CRM contacts with company and role fields, and log 'conference follow-up' as an interaction."
• Weekly pipeline review: "List all contacts with interactions older than 14 days and no scheduled follow-up. Draft a personalized 3-sentence email for each."
• Investor updates: "Get all contacts tagged investor. Write a brief update email for each based on last month's milestones in the notes."

# Agent adds a contact via API
curl $AMUX_URL/api/crm/contacts -X POST \
  -d '{"name":"Jane Smith","company":"Acme","email":"[email protected]","role":"CTO","notes":"Met at AI Summit, interested in enterprise plan"}'

# Log a follow-up interaction
curl $AMUX_URL/api/crm/contacts/PPL-12/interactions -X POST \
  -d '{"notes":"Sent intro email, awaiting reply","type":"email"}'

# Check who needs follow-up
curl $AMUX_URL/api/crm/contacts/follow-ups

Email: Gmail API Integration

amux connects directly to Gmail via the Gmail API — not Mail.app or SMTP. This means robust threading, no AppleScript fragility, and your real Gmail signature is auto-appended. AI agents can send new emails, reply in-thread, search by query, and read individual messages.

Connected accounts

Connect a Gmail account once with GET /api/gmail/[email protected]. Tokens are stored in ~/.amux/gmail-tokens/. Multiple accounts are supported — pass "from": "[email protected]" to specify which account sends.

What agents do with email

• Send new email: POST /api/email/send with to, subject, body, from, optional cc
• Reply in-thread: POST /api/email/reply with message_id (from /inbox or /search) — sets In-Reply-To/References correctly
• Search inbox: GET /api/email/search?q=investor&days=30
• Read a message: GET /api/email/message/<rfc822_id>

# Agent searches for leads and replies to each
MESSAGES=$(curl -s $AMUX_URL/api/email/search?q=pricing+question&days=7)

# For each message_id, reply with a personalized response
curl $AMUX_URL/api/email/reply -X POST \
  -d '{"message_id":"","body":"Thanks for reaching out! Here is our pricing...","from":"[email protected]"}'

Browser: Playwright Automation

The amux browser API wraps a persistent Playwright instance with saved auth profiles. AI agents can start a browser session with your cookies already loaded — no re-login — and drive any site programmatically.

Saved auth profiles

Auth profiles live in ~/.amux/playwright-auth/. Record a profile once by logging in through a headed browser. Agents then launch headless with your saved cookies, skipping login entirely. This works for LinkedIn, Stripe, GitHub, internal dashboards, and any site where you're already authenticated.

What agents do with browsers

• Research: visit 10 competitor pricing pages, screenshot each, write a comparison note
• Lead generation: search LinkedIn for job titles matching your ICP, extract names and companies, add to CRM
• Data entry: fill out partner portal forms, submit expense reports, update inventory records
• Monitoring: check Stripe dashboard daily for new signups, post a summary to the board

# Agent starts browser with default auth profile and navigates
curl $AMUX_URL/api/browser/start -X POST \
  -d '{"profile":"default","url":"https://stripe.com/dashboard"}'

# Take a screenshot — returns {"path": "/path/to/screenshot.jpg"}
curl $AMUX_URL/api/browser/screenshot

# Or hand the task to the AI browser agent (drives autonomously)
curl $AMUX_URL/api/browser/agent -X POST \
  -d '{"task":"Find all new signups from the last 7 days and return their email addresses","profile":"default"}'

Notes: Documents & Write-ups

amux includes a notes store at /api/notes/<slug> for plain text or rich HTML documents. AI agents use this to store research, drafts, reports, and structured outputs that persist across sessions.

What agents do with notes

• Research report: an agent browses 5 competitor sites, writes a structured comparison, and saves it to /api/notes/competitor-analysis-2026-07
• Weekly digest: a scheduler-driven agent reads the board and CRM, writes a summary, saves to /api/notes/weekly-digest, and emails it
• Meeting prep: before a call, an agent reads the CRM contact, notes, and recent emails, then writes a 1-page briefing note

# Agent saves a research document
curl $AMUX_URL/api/notes/competitor-research -X POST \
  -d '{"content":"# Competitor Analysis\n\n## Acme Corp\n- Pricing: $99/seat..."}'

# Read a note in the next session
curl $AMUX_URL/api/notes/competitor-research

Scheduler: Recurring Tasks

The amux scheduler runs prompts on a cron or natural-language schedule. Each schedule targets an amux session and sends it a prompt text — the session's AI agent executes the task. No external cron, no separate automation service.

# Daily inbox review at 9am (weekdays)
curl $AMUX_URL/api/schedules -X POST \
  -d '{"title":"Daily inbox review","session":"biz-ops","command":"Check the inbox for the last 24 hours. Reply to any leads or customer questions. Log interactions in CRM. Write a summary note.","schedule_expr":"every weekday at 9am"}'

# Weekly CRM follow-up check (Mondays)
curl $AMUX_URL/api/schedules -X POST \
  -d '{"title":"Weekly follow-up check","session":"biz-ops","command":"List all CRM contacts with no interaction in the last 14 days. Draft personalized follow-up emails for each and send them.","schedule_expr":"weekly on Monday at 8:30am"}'

# Daily board digest sent via email
curl $AMUX_URL/api/schedules -X POST \
  -d '{"title":"Daily board digest","session":"biz-ops","command":"Summarize what is done, doing, and todo on the board. Email the summary to [email protected].","schedule_expr":"daily at 6pm"}'

Day-in-the-Life: Agent-Run Business Day

Here is what a typical automated business day looks like when amux is running your ops layer:

amux vs n8n vs Zapier vs Separate Tools

The key difference: amux combines AI agent orchestration with the business ops API layer in one process. n8n and Zapier are good at connecting SaaS services but require separate setup for AI reasoning. Separate tools require context-switching and no single dashboard to monitor everything.

That said, amux and n8n work well together. Use amux for the AI agent loop (reasoning, code generation, complex judgment) and n8n for the integration plumbing (webhooks, SaaS connectors). See the amux vs n8n comparison for details.

FAQ

Run your whole business with AI agents.

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