The traditional version lives in enterprises: purchase requests above a threshold go to a manager, then finance, then somewhere a stamp lives. The AI-era version is leaner and more interesting: the thing being approved is not a request but a finished draft, an invoice with the amounts filled in, a reply already written, and the approval is the act that executes it.
A good approval workflow has three properties. Evidence: the approver sees the source data the draft was built from, not just the draft. Proportionality: a $40 status reply and a $40,000 payment link get different levels of scrutiny, usually via risk levels. And a record: who approved what, when, and on what basis, which turns the workflow into an audit trail rather than a click ritual.
Small business example: instead of writing four payment reminders on Friday afternoon, the owner opens a queue where all four are drafted, each citing its invoice and days overdue. Three are right and take one click each. The fourth is going to a customer who partially paid on Tuesday; the owner edits the amount and approves. Total elapsed time is under two minutes, and nothing left unread.
See the term in practice
Connect your tools read only and watch the approval queue prepare real actions from your own context. Nothing sends until you approve it.