Hamza Akbar · Operator · Systems · AI

The same decision every week belongs in a system.

I'm the COO of a 35-person agency, and I've built the systems we run on with AI. Now I want to help other teams work out what to systemize and where AI actually fits into their work.

20+Systems built
35People using them
70+Brands run on them
7 yrsOperating
About

Operator first. Builder by necessity.

Right in the middle of university, I started out as a graphic designer. Not long after, I shifted to Amazon.

I'm self-taught. I learned by doing the work in front of me and figuring it out as I went. Over time the technical side became my strength, and in 2021 that's what got me the COO role.

Today I run operations for a 35-person team managing 70+ Amazon brands. Most of what keeps it running is systems I built with AI. I still work the same way: build something, test it on real work, fix what doesn't hold.

"Be fair, and treat others the way you want to be treated."How I run the team. Anyone can call me out if I drift from it.
Uni

Graphic designer

Started designing in the middle of university.

2019

Shifted to Amazon

Learned PPC, listings and account work on the job.

2021

Chief Operating Officer

Took over the full operations stack: accounts, PPC, design, partners.

Now

Going deeper into systems and AI

Learning, applying it inside the agency, and learning from what breaks.

Why I build systems

An operator who builds, not a builder guessing at operations.

I'm in the daily grind of running an agency: client calls, team problems, accounts that slip. When I build a system, it's for a problem I deal with every week. I think like an operator, the same way my clients do.

Operator Day-to-day reality

Direct work with clients and the team. I know where things actually break.

+
AI + systems The tools to fix it

Automation, workflows and AI models, turned into things the team uses every day.

=
Together Better odds of a good outcome

Systems that fit how an operation really runs, not how it looks on paper.

Still learning

I'm not claiming to have this figured out. I learn something, apply it to a real problem inside the agency, see what breaks, and learn from that.

Learn→Apply→See what breaks→Learn again

Where I'm headed

Go deeper into systems building and AI, and help other agencies and operators build the same kind of systems for their own work.

Talk systems with me →
How I can help

From repeated work to a system.

I'm not selling a platform. I help teams work out what's worth automating, design it around how they actually operate, and bring AI in where it earns its place.

Find what to systemize

Look at where your team makes the same decisions or does the same manual work every week, and pick what's worth building first.

  • Workflow walkthrough
  • Repeated-work audit
  • A short list, in priority order

Design the system

Map the steps, the rules and who owns what before anything gets built, so the system fits the way your team works.

  • Process and ownership map
  • Clear rules and exceptions
  • What stays human

Bring AI into it

Use AI where it actually helps: reading calls, summarizing, classifying, drafting. People keep the decisions that matter.

  • Call and message analysis
  • Auto-routing and alerts
  • Draft reports and updates

Build, test, adopt

Build on tools you already use, test it on real data, and make sure the team actually uses it. Adoption is usually the hard part.

  • Built on your existing tools
  • Tested on real data
  • Rolled out with the team
Internal systems

A few things I've built.

Each one started with a problem that kept coming back every week. I work out the logic, AI writes the code, and we test it on real work before the team relies on it. These run inside my own agency.

Built with

Drag the cards, or use the arrows

1 / 4
How I work

A few things I've learned.

Lessons from building systems inside a real business. Most of them came from getting something wrong first.

01

Start with the repeated decision

If someone makes the same call every week, that's the first thing worth turning into a system. It's usually not the most exciting problem, just the most frequent one.

Same decision weekly → system
02

Fix friction, not compliance

When people keep breaking a process, it's usually too expensive to follow. Make the right thing easier and compliance follows. More rules rarely help.

Less friction > more rules
03

Test on real data first

A system isn't done when it runs. It's done when it's been checked against real output and the team understands what it's doing, not just trusts it.

Real data before rollout
04

Keep the stack simple

Most of what I've built runs on spreadsheets, scripts, Slack and an AI model. You don't need a complicated tech stack to remove hours of manual work.

Case study 01

Weekly client updates: 8–10 minutes down to under one.

Weekly updates had an SOP and a format. Compliance was still poor: few went out consistently and formats varied. So I stopped enforcing and removed the friction instead.

Time per account, per week<1 minfrom 8–10 min
Accounts getting structured updates~70–80%consistent weekly
When it landsFrimidday, pre-written
Built fromTaskslive tracker data

Minutes per account, per week

Each team member gets a pre-written, structured update every Friday midday, generated from their tasks.

Before: written manually8–10 min
After: review and send<1 min

When people keep breaking an SOP, it's usually too expensive to follow.

Process designFriction removal
Case study 02

Replies were arriving. Nobody was seeing them.

Support tickets with Amazon were closing on their own because nobody noticed the replies in time. The fix took about ten seconds per ticket to set up.

Auto-closed ticketsReplies missed past the response window
Found by complaintClients told us things felt slow
~10 secondsOne-time setup per ticket
Instant alertStraight to the ticket owner on Slack

What happened

What I built

Step 1Owner adds the ticket ID once, about 10 seconds
Step 2A watcher checks the inbox for replies on that ticket
Step 3The owner gets a Slack message the moment a reply lands
Step 4Built on email and Slack. No new software to buy

Got a process that keeps slipping?

Tell me about it. I'll tell you honestly whether a system would help.

Start a conversation →
Let's connect

Reach out.

If your team is buried in repeated manual work, or you want to bring AI into how you operate but don't know where to start, send me a message.

Hamza Akbar