What is batch processing?
Batch processing runs a pile of similar jobs together, usually on a schedule, instead of one by one as each event arrives. It trades speed for a calmer review. Some model vendors offer a separate batch API with its own price. Read their current pricing before you assume it is cheaper.
In plain English
Fifty member notes drafted at 8 p.m. for a morning check is a batch. A reply while the member is on the phone is not. Batching lets you scan a list. It is a bad fit when someone is waiting. A batch is for work nobody is waiting on tonight. Draft the notes after close, review in the morning, send when a person has looked. Do not batch a reply to someone on the phone. Cap the batch size the first week so a bad prompt cannot produce two hundred wrong drafts before you notice. If the vendor prices batch calls differently, read that page before you assume you saved money.
How an owner would use it
Batch the work you can review as a list: weekly emails, tag suggestions, a folder of transcripts. Keep a person on the send. Do not batch a refund decision.
Common mistakes
A batch that auto-sends at midnight will deliver fifty copies of the same mistake. A batch without idempotency will redo the pile if the schedule runs twice. Do not promise a discount from a vendor's batch plan you have not read. The pattern is the review window, not the invoice.
A worked example
A vegetable CSA
Pickup notes are drafted after the harvest sheet is done
This is an illustration, not a customer result. When the harvest sheet is saved, a batch drafts one short pickup note per site using only that sheet's items. The farmer deletes a note that mentions a vegetable not on the sheet. In the morning they send the rest from the approved list.
Related terms
Prompts and guides
Questions owners ask
What is batch processing?
Batch processing handles many similar items in one planned run so a person can review the set before anything goes out.
How do I batch AI drafts safely?
Run them when the source sheet is final, list the outputs, and send only the rows a person accepted. Skip auto-send until that review is boring.
Is a batch API always cheaper?
No. Some vendors price delayed batch calls differently. Check their current pricing page. The reason to batch is the review, not a rumor about a discount.
Product guides are on AI apps for business.