AI Agents and SOPs: How Autonomous Workflows Change Documentation

AI agents change SOPs from *instructions humans follow* into *programs a language model executes*. The steps still describe the same task, but they now need to be unambiguous about tools, inputs, and success criteria — because the reader is an LLM with tool access, not a person who can shrug and ask a colleague. In 2026 the winning pattern is dual-format: keep the human-friendly captured page (produced by [Haiku](/reviews/haiku) or [Scribe](/reviews/scribe)) and export a structured JSON representation for agents to consume. Tools that only export PDF/DOCX will get left behind here; capture-first tools with clean APIs ([Haiku](/reviews/haiku), [Document360](/reviews/document360)) are the natural fit. See our [best SOP software rankings](/rankings) for API and export scores.