Email on autopilot
Email that runs itself, inside rules you set.
AI can now plan, write, build, check and send most of a brand’s email, and learn from the results. What it cannot do safely is make it up as it goes. Full automation works when the brand, the code and the rules are fixed in a design system, and AI works inside them.
Choose how far to go. Most brands start at level two and move up as trust is earned.
Four levels of automation
AI builds complete emails inside your system; a person approves each one.
- Effect
- Hours per campaign become minutes
- Suits
- Most brands today
AI does
- Builds whole emails from your components
- Writes copy in your voice
- Runs the Health Check and fixes failures
People do
- Writes the brief
- Approves every email before it sends
- Owns the calendar
The loop
Every automated send goes round the same seven steps. The check and approval steps are where people and rules stay in control.
- 01
Plan
Reads your calendar, bookings, stock and past results. Proposes what to send, to whom, and when.
- 02
Write
Drafts every email in your voice, for each audience and market, from your approved components.
- 03
Build
Assembles the email from the design system. It never writes HTML, so nothing breaks.
- 04
Check
Runs the Health Check, links, offers and legal lines. Anything that fails goes back, not out.
- 05
Approve
Follows your rules: some sends go straight out, some wait for a person, some always need one.
- 06
Send
Schedules through your platform with the right audience, suppressions and send time.
- 07 · back to 01
Learn
Reads clicks, bookings and complaints, keeps what worked, and feeds it into the next plan.
What can be automated
Lifecycle journeys
Welcome, pre-arrival, post-stay, win-back and birthday emails, written per guest and refreshed as results come in.
Campaign calendar
A weekly plan built from events, seasons, availability and what each segment responded to last time.
Personalisation
Copy, offers and blocks chosen per segment or per person, within limits you set.
Testing
Subject lines and content tested continuously, with winners kept and losers retired automatically.
Quality control
Every email checked for rendering, accessibility, links, prices and legal text before it can leave.
Reporting
A plain-English weekly summary: what went out, what worked, what the system changed, what needs a decision.
The guardrails that make it safe
The brand is locked
AI fills components; it cannot change layout, colours, type or code. Every email looks like your brand because it is built from it.
Nothing unchecked leaves
The Health Check is a gate, not a report. Below your threshold, the email is held.
Rules decide what needs a person
Routine sends can go automatically. Prices, legal claims, apologies and anything new always wait for approval.
Consent is enforced by code
Unsubscribes, suppressions and frequency caps are applied by the system, never left to the model.
Limits and a kill switch
Volume caps per day, automatic pause if complaints or unsubscribes rise, and one switch that stops everything.
Everything is logged
Who or what wrote, approved and sent each email, and why. Audit-ready by default.
A week at a hotel group, on level three
An illustration of how the work divides, not a client result.
- MondayAI reviews last week: the spa offer beat the restaurant email two to one with past guests. It drafts this week’s plan: three campaigns, two journey refreshes.
- TuesdayThe CRM manager approves the plan in ten minutes, edits one subject line and rejects a discount the AI suggested for a sold-out weekend.
- WednesdayEmails are built, checked and scheduled per property and market. One fails the Health Check on a missing alt text and is fixed before anyone sees it.
- ThursdaySends go out. Complaint rate on one segment rises; the system pauses that segment and flags it.
- FridayA short report: bookings attributed, what changed, one decision needed on the paused segment.
Proof
Our own email runs this way
Every email this website sends is automated: replies to enquiries, waitlist and estimate confirmations, the welcome email, and the follow-ups that go out three and fourteen days later. A daily job decides what is due, builds each email from our own design system, sends it once and logs it. The Inbox Brief is researched and drafted with AI, and checked by a person before it goes.
- Built from the same components as client emails
- Every email scores 100 on the Health Check
- Nobody is ever sent the same email twice
- Unsubscribes enforced by the database, not the model
What it connects to
- Your email platform
- Braze, Klaviyo, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Dynamics 365, HubSpot or Mailchimp, through their APIs.
- Your data
- Booking engine or property system, product and stock feeds, CRM segments and event calendars.
- Claude
- Through MCP and a Skill that knows your brand, components and rules. See how it plugs in on the AI page.
- Your team
- Approvals in the Composer, a weekly report by email, and alerts when the system pauses itself.
Start with level two.
An automated programme needs a design system underneath it. We build the system, connect the AI and set the rules, then move you up a level when the results justify it.