Office work got automated. Deskless work is next.

Office work got automated a long time ago. Tools like Zapier have spent more than 15 years moving admin work between inboxes, spreadsheets, CRMs and accounting systems. Deskless work got a WhatsApp group, a paper checklist and a manager who still has to ask whether the work is done.

Cleaners, baristas, plumbers and other deskless workers do not need another office tool. They need the right work to happen at the right time, without managers constantly checking, reminding and chasing.

I know that gap first-hand. I spent much of those 15 years consulting to deskless industries. The software made the work behind my keyboard faster, but it did almost nothing for the people carrying out the work I was there to improve.

I started as a graduate manager in a builders merchant, learning how a team and a stockroom actually run at 8am on a Saturday when 25 vans are beeping to get through the gates. I then moved into health and safety on construction sites, running the training that kept people safe, before building a consultancy and spending years inside retail and hospitality businesses.

In every one of those places, the office had good software and the floor had almost none. The manager had a laptop for the numbers. The deskless team had a WhatsApp group and a laminated checklist on the wall. Much of the communication was simply checking whether somebody had done what they were supposed to do.

At one stage, my consultancy created branded management diaries for hospitality and retail venues. We turned a large set of daily tasks into wire-bound diaries and posted hundreds of them out every month.

They solved one part of the problem. Staff could see what needed doing and record that they had done it. But the diary could not spot a missed check, ask for an answer or bring a problem to the right manager. Recording the work still left somebody responsible for chasing it.

This is not a niche problem. Work away from a desk happens in almost every industry, yet the people doing it have had far fewer useful tools.

The work matters just as much. It is simply harder to automate because it changes constantly and is made up of thousands of small, physical actions.

Office automation starts with work that already exists as data. An invoice arrives, a row is added to a spreadsheet and a message is posted. The shape of the work is predictable and every part of it already lives inside software.

Deskless work is different. The trigger is often a person, in a place, doing a physical thing: checking a fridge, inspecting a pallet before it ships or completing a care round. The work does not become data until somebody records it.

I think this is the moment that gap closes. Running a deskless team on a WhatsApp group and a laminated sheet will soon look as reckless as doing the accounts on the back of an envelope.

Two things make that possible now:

1. Every deskless team can carry a phone or tablet to the place where the work happens.
2. AI can now interpret less predictable inputs, make bounded decisions and take configured actions.

Together, they let us coordinate physical work at scale and put AI inside the work itself.

That last part matters. A chatbot beside the work can answer a question, but it cannot keep the process moving unless somebody stops and asks. That is a help desk, not work management.

For the last three years, I have been obsessed with building something different. Teams need a system they can set up around their own process, then trust to handle the routine checking and follow-up.

The process also needs to stay flexible. Deskless work varies from business to business and even site to site. Operators should not have to compromise the way they work to fit somebody else's template.

That led us to Pilla: a flexible workflow builder with Pilla's decision-making and actions embedded inside the workflow.

Managers define what should happen and when. Staff follow the workflow on the device they already carry and record the work as they do it. Pilla checks those inputs against the rules the manager set, then takes the configured next step when something needs attention.

Managers stay in control. Pilla handles the routine checking and follow-up, while people handle judgement and exceptions.

This is also what makes Pilla different from Zapier. Zapier moves work between software. Pilla first gives physical work a digital shape, then keeps that work moving.

The moment somebody logs a result, Pilla can read it, make a bounded decision and take a configured action: follow up a missed step, flag a failed check, escalate a problem or update another tool.

Most apps for deskless teams are clipboards with a login. They record that work happened. They do nothing when it does not.

Pilla is AI work management for deskless teams. It helps teams get the right work done at the right time, without managers constantly chasing. That is the whole reason Pilla exists.