Proactive AI Agents Drive Token Usage Higher, Posing Steep Operating-Cost Challenge

Proactive AI agents do more than answer individual queries. They independently plan tasks and repeatedly call models and tools, consuming more tokens than conventional chat services. The shift has implications for AI software companies’ gross margins and pricing. If API and cloud-computing expenses surge with usage, subscription revenue may not be enough to support agents that operate for extended periods.

Recent reporting indicates that AI agents use about 5 to 30 times as many tokens as ordinary conversations to complete comparable tasks, reaching as much as 30 times the consumption. This is forcing investors and entrepreneurs to reassess their business models. However, the available event data does not identify the report date, specific institutions or actual amounts, making it impossible to calculate the cost per task or companies’ overall operating burden.