Busywork Showdown // Experiment 007
Pick the chore that eats your week.
Then pick who gets rid of it: rent Yet Another SaaS AI agent, or have the lab build you something you own. Watch both. Takes about 30 seconds each.
- Pick a chore
- Pick a fix
- Watch it play out
The before: everybody doing it by hand.
Pick a chore and watch the clock run.
1. Pick the chore that eats your week
2. Who handles invoices?
The playable version needs JavaScript. The short version is right below. See the comparison
The short version
Renting an agent vs. owning the fix
| Rent an AI agent | Build it with the lab | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | Per seat, per month, plus usage. Forever. | One build, quoted up front. Projects from $1,500. |
| When it isn't sure | It guesses, confidently. | Rules handle the predictable steps. AI flags what it can't verify to a human. |
| Fit | You bend your process around its features. | Built around how your team already works. |
| Your data | Lives on their servers, under their terms. | Stays in your accounts. |
| If prices go up or they shut down | You start over. | You own the code. There's nothing to cancel. |
| Who you talk to | A support ticket. | Me, the person who wrote it. |
Field notes // Facts, not hype
Why "just add an AI agent" keeps going sideways
-
40%+
of agentic AI projects will be scrapped by the end of 2027
Gartner's forecast. The reasons: escalating costs, unclear business value, and weak risk controls.
-
~130
of the thousands of "agentic AI" vendors are the real thing
Gartner's estimate. The rest is "agent washing": chatbots and old automation tools with a new label and a new price.
-
~60%
of the workday goes to "work about work"
Chasing updates, switching apps, repetitive copy-paste. The exact chores a small custom tool can take off the table.
-
$23,364
for three years of one agent seat at the bill in the demo above
$649/mo × 36 months, before the next price increase, for one seat. Then you still don't own anything.
Illustrative math
SYS_PROTOCOL // How the lab does it
Automation first. AI where it earns its keep.
-
Watch the real workflow
A free 15-minute call. You walk me through the chore, clicks and all. I'll tell you if it's worth building at all.
-
Automate the predictable steps
Moving data, matching records, filing, sending. Plain code: fast, cheap to run, and it never guesses.
-
Spot-insert AI for judgment calls
Reading messy PDFs, drafting replies, flagging the weird ones. Every AI step has a check and a human fallback.
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Hand you the keys
Your code, your accounts, plain-English docs. Keep me around for upgrades, or don't. Your call.
Book the Specimen Check
Bring me your most boring workflow.
15 minutes, free. You tell me the chore. I tell you whether to automate it, buy something off the shelf, or leave it alone. Honest answer either way.
Book a free 15-min callFree · 15 min · Zoom or phone
Rather type it out? Name the chore