{"slug": "ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents", "title": "Ask HN: Workflow Automation vs AI Agents?", "summary": "A Hacker News user asks the community to compare workflow automation tools (Zapier, Make, n8n) with emerging AI agents (OpenAI Workspace Agents, Lindy, Claude's agentic features), seeking real-world usage insights on tradeoffs, trust, and reasons for choosing neither.", "body_md": "A while ago, workflow automation tools (Zapier, Make, n8n) were booming. Now AI agents start eating into that space, OpenAI's Workspace Agents, Lindy, Claude's agentic features, etc.\n\ni understand both have tradeoffs, but i'm trying to understand real-world usage:\n\n1. why workflow automarion over AI Agents? What does it still do better?\n\n2. if you've using AI agents, what made you switch? What do you trust them with?\n\n3. why not use either of them?\n\nfeel free to give your opinion, im curious\n\nComments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48943616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48943616)\n\nPoints: 1\n\n# Comments: 0", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents", "canonical_source": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48943616", "published_at": "2026-07-17 05:28:15+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-17 05:51:00.098399+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Zapier", "Make", "n8n", "OpenAI", "Lindy", "Claude"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ask-hn-workflow-automation-vs-ai-agents.jsonld"}}