The system analyses what the actor is doing and recommends the most useful next step.
The most forward-leaning pattern on the assisted task completion spectrum, right at the edge of autonomous action. It works at the workflow level, not at the field or content level, and suggests actions — schedule a call, run tests, send a follow-up — rather than data values or text.
Consequences
- the system proposes actions rather than values, so accepting one commits the actor to something whose consequences they didn't work out themselves; what guards the accept has to be proportional to what the action does
- where the stakes are high, the recommendation being easy to accept is the problem rather than the feature — the accept needs a beat of deliberate thought built into it
- recommendations now arrive uninvited, at moments the system picked; a pile of them nobody resolved teaches the actor to stop reading the channel at all
Appears in
Assistance escalation
- Proposing the next move, step 1 — Propose the next step
Related patterns
Precedes
- Action consequences — the system proposes actions rather than values, so accepting one commits the actor to something whose consequences they didn't work out themselves; what guards the accept has to be proportional to what the action does
- Cognitive forcing functions — where the stakes are high, the recommendation being easy to accept is the problem rather than the feature — the accept needs a beat of deliberate thought built into it
Instantiates
- Suggestion — suggestion is the broader pattern; next-best action specialises it to recommending workflow steps
Serves
- Assistance — Next-best action draws on assistance to decide what to suggest at workflow transitions
- Delegation — Next-best action sits at delegation's accept-or-perform boundary — the same recommendation can be presented for the actor to accept or for the agent to perform.
Enacts
- Agency — the system proposes the step; the actor takes it or leaves it
- Adaptability — recommendations that improve from accepted/rejected signal over time
Complements
- Assisted task completion — the spectrum this pattern belongs to
- Agent — powers next-best action via the ambient mode of interaction
- Embedded intelligence — next-best action as intelligence woven into the workflow
- Transparent reasoning — explaining the rationale behind recommendations
- Notification — a common delivery mechanism for next-best action prompts
- Onboarding — next-best action as guided first-use experience
Alternatives
- Wizard — When users have varying goals and do not benefit from a rigid sequence, next best action recommends optimal steps dynamically instead of locking users into a fixed path, while an interactive agent can handle complex dependencies through conversation, allowing users to ask clarifying questions about earlier decisions at any time.
Preceded by
- Generated content — the output is a transition point the system can read — knowing what just arrived, it can propose what to do with it next