The promise of AI agents is simple: more output, lower cost. Fast, solid, automated work.

The Reality: “agent” companies are already charging premium credit fees on top of the AI subscriptions you already pay for, based on value that hasn’t been realized yet.

They get paid now. You carry the risk.

And in the early days, they’ll tolerate sloppy work because it makes the demo look good.

Here’s how not to get played.

1) Make sure the work you hand off is actually worth paying for.

If you’re paying agent rates, give it high-leverage, non-trivial work. Not busywork.

Notice every agent commercial shows it doing basic bitch work. It does low-level tasks reliably. That’s not an accident.

Most use cases being marketed are low value and overhyped.

Imagine if you had a butler. Sounds great until you’re paying his salary. Then you expect him to generate value, not just bring drinks, read emails, check recipes, and book appointments.

That’s cheap work. Low leverage. Often not worth paying an agent premium for.

2) Beware overpriced agent “credit” systems.

This is the gig economy all over again, just wrapped in AI branding.

Do not be tricked into paying premium rates for work that is often lower quality than what a competent freelancer could deliver, with none of the protections.

No refunds. Credits spent are credits gone. Please insert more coins to continue. 

You’re taking on all the execution risk while the platform gets paid upfront.

If you wouldn’t pay a skilled human that rate for that task, don’t pay agent credits for it either.

And let’s be honest, these “credit” systems look a lot like crypto tokens and credit card points.

They can change the value, pricing, and rules whenever they want. You don’t control the economics.

That’s not a productivity tool. That’s a margin extraction system.

3) Use free trials of agents to audit your systems first.

Identify what should be:

• Standardized as process
• Automated via process automation
• Handled as a one-time AI project (not an ongoing agent role)
• Or actually handed off to a 24/7 agent worth paying for

Find the MVP core of your system first, then decide where agents belong.

Hint: marketing spam is now a commodity. Trust and focused attention are scarce. Spam is not. The default “always-on spam bot” agent probably won’t earn its keep.

4) Standardize and automate anything repeatable before you pay an agent to do it.

I know it sounds repetitive - but this is critical. Don’t pay dollars for work that basic automation can do for free.

Fix the kinks out of your system first. Sloppy systems with daydreaming an agent to clean it all up, sounds nice til you see the output and the price tag (yikes).

Sloppy operations multiplied by an agent just create faster, more expensive slop. Keep in mind the companies pimping the Agents aren’t incentivized to fix broken systems. They’re incentivized to make them fail faster and more frequently and use Agents to “Try” to fix them. Please insert more coins to continue. 

5) Don’t pay for performance theater.

“Look at me using AI agents, I’m so innovative” is not a business outcome. It’s a marketing expense that convinces no one.

Bragging that you’re using agents to “automate marketing” usually means you’re mass-producing spam. That’s not a flex.

What are you ACTUALLY shipping more of and who bought it? That sorts things out quickly. 

6) You (probably) don’t need another auto-generated internal newsletter about your own business.

Build a dashboard. Look at it. Set a recurring reminder. That’s free. Having an agent do it is like paying  a NYT editor to handcraft a newspaper. Again, sounds nice til you see the price tag. 

7) Everyone will spend to use agents spam the planet - and it still won’t work. 

Outreach that doesn’t create real conversations, relationships, or deals is performance theater.

Spam volume is exploding. Response rates are collapsing.

Focus on what earns trust, commands focused attention, and builds pipelines of real relationships. Then double down on that.

The #1 agent use case you’ll see in ads will be “automate your marketing.”
Translation: generate more posts and scripts.

That pitch has existed for 20 years in different forms. It fails every time.

8) Agents have ongoing maintenance costs.

They’re not like people.

Every time the underlying model updates, your outputs can change. Tone shifts. Quality shifts. Reasoning shifts.

It’s like an employee who randomly changes experience level and personality every few weeks.

9) Log the time and effort spent fixing agent output. That’s part of the cost.

Track ROI on every workflow you hand to an agent.  If you’re still babysitting it, it’s not delivering leverage. 

The management layer counts too. That cost sits on the agent’s tab, whether the vendor likes it or not. 

10) If it doesn’t open doors or close deals, you don’t have a business system. You have a prosumer hobby.

Stop measuring emails sent and posts published. Measure clients won and revenue created.

There’s an entire industry built on 30 years overhyping microscopic “engagement” signals.  Ignore it. 

They’re not breadcrumbs, they’re dust. Not even Dorito dust.

That doesn’t feed a business.

If the metric doesn’t tie to revenue, or specific strategic goals it’s probably performance theater.

11) Make the agents earn their keep.

The output should exceed human work in speed, quality, or scale. Ideally all three.

Ask the real question:

Can this agent create 10x value without me babysitting it while I sleep?

Because the market will normalize to agents quickly. Break even isn’t enough.
You need asymmetric advantage early or you’re just paying to stay average.

Agents are a force multiplier.

But if you multiply weak strategy, weak systems, and weak offers…

you just get more weakness at scale.

Come with me if you want to thrive. Kidding. Follow me if you want. Or let’s chat in comments.