The Board Questions

How many AI agents are in production today?

You cannot govern what you cannot count. Portfolios are usually larger than leadership believes, because agents are built inside SaaS tools, business units and personal accounts.

Who is the economic owner of each one?

Not who built it — who answers for it if it does not pay back. Without a named owner, nobody has the authority or the incentive to retire it.

What does each one cost per month?

Usage-based costs scale silently. The real cost includes integration and the human time spent reviewing output, not only the model bill.

What business outcome is each one contracted to influence?

Every agent should exist to move a named metric: cycle time, cost per case, revenue or risk. Efficiency agents and strategic agents deserve different thresholds — but both need one.

When was that contract last reviewed — and what would make us retire it?

Agents accumulate. Without a review date and a retirement criterion, the portfolio only grows.