Workflow automation (Zapier, n8n)
Wiring.
Triggers + actions. "If a new row in Sheets, send a Slack message." Brilliant at moving data. Doesn't read documents. Doesn't reason. Can't decide.
Agentic Workflows · Orchestration
Multi-agent workflows, when one AI isn't enough.
Real business work has steps, branches and approvals. Multi-agent workflows give each step a specialist AI that does one job well, then hands its result — with its receipts — to the next.
The one-liner
A multi-agent workflow is a pipeline where each AI agent has one job — passing structured results to the next — with humans approving at the points that matter.
A single big agent that tries to do everything is hard to debug and easy to confuse. A pipeline of small specialists is replayable, inspectable, and easy to change.
The reframe
Zapier moves data. Agents make decisions.
If your work is just "when X happens, copy to Y", you don't need agents. If there's a "but" — but check policy, but escalate if risky, but draft an explanation — that's a multi-agent workflow.
Multi-agent workflows (Certant)
Reasoning between the wires.
Triggers + actions + agents that read, classify, score and explain. "If a contract arrives, read it, flag the risky clauses, draft a redline, and ask the right human to approve."
One real workflow, end-to-end
Contract review, in five steps.
What happens between "a vendor emails a contract" and "your risk team has signed it off".
Inbox watcher
Watches a shared inbox. Picks up the PDF. Routes the workflow.
Agent A · Extract
Pulls parties, dates, value, termination terms, indemnities, governing law into a clean JSON object.
Agent B · Match policy
Compares each clause against your policy library. Returns a score and a citation for each finding.
Branch · Risk?
Low risk → auto-approve with audit log. Anything ambiguous → keep going.
Agent C + human
Drafts a redline with the policy citation, opens a ticket, pings the right human in Slack. They approve, edit or reject. The next time the pipeline runs, it knows.
Why pipelines beat monoliths
Small, sharp, swappable.
Three properties that make multi-agent workflows safer than one big "do everything" agent.
Typed contracts
Every agent declares schema in, schema out. A wrong shape is caught at the boundary — not three steps later when nothing makes sense.
Stop when you should
Any node can be a human approval step. The workflow pauses, the approver sees the full reasoning trail, and the rest of the pipeline runs on their decision.
Replay before prod
Run the whole pipeline against the last 30 days of real data. See each agent's input, output, latency and cost. Diff against the previous version.
Zapier moves data. Agents make decisions. Multi-agent workflows make the decisions between the wires — and stop when they should.
FAQ
Multi-agent, decoded.
What is a multi-agent workflow?
A pipeline of AI agents where each one has a single, well-defined job — passing structured results to the next, with humans approving at the points that matter. One agent reads, the next decides, the next acts, and a human checks the bits that should never be fully automated.
What is agentic AI?
Agentic AI describes systems that don't just answer — they act. Agentic workflows chain together several agents and tools to complete a real business task end-to-end, with logging, replay and human approval baked in.
How is this different from Zapier or n8n?
Zapier and n8n move data when a trigger fires. Multi-agent workflows make decisions — extracting, classifying, comparing, drafting, escalating. Same canvas metaphor, but each node can reason. You can keep your Zaps; they fire the pipeline.
Can a multi-agent workflow include a human approval step?
Yes. Any node in a Certant workflow can be a human-in-the-loop step. The workflow pauses, an approver sees the agent's reasoning and the citation, and approves, edits or rejects. The pipeline resumes with their decision logged.
How do you stop multi-agent workflows from hallucinating?
Two things. Every step has structured inputs and outputs, so wrong shapes are caught at the boundary. And every reasoning step is grounded in your documents with citations — claims with no source never reach the next agent.
Can I edit a workflow without code?
Yes. The agent builder is drag-and-drop. You can also drop Python or JavaScript anywhere in the flow for the 10% of cases that don't fit a template.
Build one. Run it Monday.
Drag the agents. Wire them up. Replay against real data. Ship without writing code.