Gartner says cheaper open AI models can do nine in ten AI agent steps. CFOs sign the contracts that price each step.
Two Gartner analysts, Mark Petty and Raymond Paquet, wrote that most agent steps are routine work such as classifying, checking and reconciling data, The Register reported on 3 November.
Open-weight models, which a company can run itself, handle those steps at a quarter of the price of the cheapest closed model, they wrote, and at as little as a twentieth of a frontier model used on every step.
The analysts call those best-case numbers. Open models retry more often, so against a frontier model the saving per task is closer to five or six times, they wrote.
Gartner's planning assumption: by 2030, 90% of company operational agent workflow steps will run on open-weight models. The analysts say the bigger reason is control, since each routine step sent to an outside model sends company data with it.
Our reading for CFOs: the budget question moves from which model to buy to which steps need the expensive one. A contract priced per step on a frontier model, with no right to send routine work elsewhere, pays the top rate for the routine nine in ten.
Sources
Our file on Gartner
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For your next steering committee
- 1Ask which exit clauses your largest software and services contracts carry, and when each can be used.
- 2Ask what leaving would cost, in money and in months.
- 3Ask who reads the contract when a dispute starts, and whether they have read it before.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01
