The Week's Opener: Monetizing AI Agents

The Week’s Opener :magnifying_glass_tilted_left:

One hot question from us to kick off the week:

A few weeks back, @steven_forth raised a fascinating point about AI agents.

  • B2B software is generally expected to generate anywhere from 10X to 20X the value of its cost.
  • On the other hand, a knowledge worked is often expected to bill out at 3X to 5X of her fully loaded cost.

This creates a very interesting pricing dynamic. Take OpenAI’s recent idea of pricing $20,000 per month for an agent:

  • If valued like B2B software, that should translate to $200k - $400k in value.
  • If valued as a human worker, that should translate to $60k - $100k in value.

As AI agents go mainstream, which measuring stick will they be held to?

What do you think?

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