McKinsey warns that AI may get a lot more expensive for companies

McKinsey says that AI agents take different routes on the same task. AI McKinsey & Company warns that not all AI agents operate the same way — and could rack up costs. McKinsey found that cost "variance can be up to 30x between different runs." In a recent report, the firm said agents can cut human time on tasks by 70%. McKinsey & Company warns companies that AI spending may rise even further as agents become more common. Compared to text-based AI tools, agents can cost much more to run because they are actually completing tasks. Such tasks are often multistep processes, so the same goal can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and costs vary widely. According to a McKinsey study, the cost of completion for different agents could differ by as much as 30 times.