The $6,000 runaway agent charge vs a $50 monthly bill is exactly the nightmare scenario nobody talks about. 80% seeing zero productivity impact despite tripling usage - I believe it. Most teams are bolting AI onto broken workflows and wondering why the P&L is flat.
What changed my numbers was treating it as infrastructure with a budget, not a magic tool. My setup costs $400/month and cleared $355 in direct revenue last month - not transformational yet, but the trajectory is there because I redesigned the workflow first. Details here: https://thoughts.jock.pl/p/project-money-ai-agent-value-creation-experiment-2026
The $6,000 runaway agent charge vs a $50 monthly bill is exactly the nightmare scenario nobody talks about. 80% seeing zero productivity impact despite tripling usage - I believe it. Most teams are bolting AI onto broken workflows and wondering why the P&L is flat.
What changed my numbers was treating it as infrastructure with a budget, not a magic tool. My setup costs $400/month and cleared $355 in direct revenue last month - not transformational yet, but the trajectory is there because I redesigned the workflow first. Details here: https://thoughts.jock.pl/p/project-money-ai-agent-value-creation-experiment-2026
Great point and I agree limiting your API budget will eliminate these costing nightmares for LLMs