The AI Agent Trap: Why Rules Engines Win for Lead Processing

Teams are overcomplicating lead processing by using AI agents for deterministic business logic that should be expressed as code. By separating fuzzy extraction (where LLMs excel) from deterministic routing decisions (where rule engines are faster and more reliable), you reduce costs and eliminate the concurrency issues that plague production systems. The key insight is treating LLMs as narrow extractors, not general decision-makers.