Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents • Hacker News Board

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#61

Post by rajvarkala » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 8:30 AM UTC

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #56

ivanstojic wrote: post #34

I started reading the article and immediately got hit by the incorrect statement in the opening: > If AI agents help each support employee handle 30% more tickets, that's like adding 30 new hires to a 100-person team, without the cost. I think this is an oversimplification designed to make LLMs seem more profitable than they actually are.

If the AI does all the easy tickets, there's no easing in new hires, so that process is going to be more expensive, so I better get discounted for that hit. If there is zero slack, and only the hardest parts, this is no longer the job it was before. Salaries will have to go up, or retention will go down. In addition these jobs could already be awful when there was some slack, removing all slack tasks to AI is going t…

One reason slack exists is because of capacity and utilization, less slack -> higher wait times in peak times.

Is slack intended for Employee welfare? Come on, we are talking corporate here.

The support services are already regimented - L1, L2 etc. I am not a fan of AI either, but it may be a new reality.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#62

Post by jagged-chisel » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 12:08 PM UTC

Outcome-billing makes absolute sense! In every case where I have used an LLM to work on a software project, I have been frustrated by the process and end up educating the thing myself. The outcome is that it has learned from me, so I need a place to send my consulting bill.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#63

Post by rajvarkala » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 12:53 PM UTC

jagged-chisel wrote: post #62

Outcome-billing makes absolute sense! In every case where I have used an LLM to work on a software project, I have been frustrated by the process and end up educating the thing myself. The outcome is that it has learned from me, so I need a place to send my consulting bill.

:)

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#64

Post by wood_spirit » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 12:55 PM UTC

rajvarkala wrote: post #19

wood_spirit wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get what you measure. The bot might be really bad and customers close the chat and it gets counted as success etc.

The same applies to human agents as well. Humans are incentivised differently ? How? The same oversight mechanism that applies to humans cannot correct the flaws of AI agents?

Except the meta reason for employing AI for these use cases is to stop employing the humans?

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#65

Post by HelloMcFly » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

rajvarkala wrote: post #59

HelloMcFly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At scale? Programmatically? In a way that actually saves time and doesn't create billing conflict (that always happens to benefit the LLM vendor)? No I do not.

Interesting. Let's take the case of infra spend on AWS. Amazon says you invoked serverless calls 100k times and you are charged for it. How are you trusting them?

The comparison doesn't quite hold because AWS is a utility; they aren't an arbiter of quality. Amazon charges for a serverless call regardless of whether your code worked or crashed. You pay for the effort (compute), which is verifiable and binary.

Once you shift to billing for outcomes like "resolutions," the vendor switches from a utility provider to the judge and jury of their own performance. At scale, that creates a "fox guarding the henhouse" dynamic. The friction of auditing those outcomes to ensure they aren't just Goodharted metrics eventually offsets the simplicity the model promises. Frankly, I just cannot and will not trust the judgment of tech companies who evangelize their own LLM outputs.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#66

Post by rajvarkala » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 1:48 PM UTC

HelloMcFly wrote: post #65

rajvarkala wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Let's take the case of infra spend on AWS. Amazon says you invoked serverless calls 100k times and you are charged for it. How are you trusting them?

The comparison doesn't quite hold because AWS is a utility; they aren't an arbiter of quality. Amazon charges for a serverless call regardless of whether your code worked or crashed. You pay for the effort (compute), which is verifiable and binary. Once you shift to billing for outcomes like "resolutions," the vendor switches from a utility provider to the judge and jury of their own performance. At scale, that creat…

How do you verify AWS charges? By inspecting logs? There goes the arbiter.

I get the binary part. The biggest difference is the subjective component of outcome? However, a tech provider - especially Agent provider - has to bring down the subjective to a quantitative metric when selling. If that cannot be done, I am not sure what we are going to be buying from Agent builders/providers?

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#67

Post by lbreakjai » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 1:59 PM UTC

rajvarkala wrote: post #49

lbreakjai wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans respect the rules because if they don't, then they lose their jobs, can't pay their mortgages, and become homeless. That's quite a powerful incentive not to fudge the numbers too much. There's no LLM equivalent.

The agent builder loses contract .. Is this not force enough to make AI worthwhile?

Why would the AI care? The agent builder is still asking a non-deterministic black box with no skin in the game to behave a certain way, they have no guarantees.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#68

Post by rajvarkala » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

htrp wrote: post #54

rajvarkala wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi alberth, I'd assume an outcome is a negotiated agreement between buyer and Agent provider. Think of all the n8n workflows. If we take a simple example of Expense receipt processing workflows, or a lead sourcing workflow, I'd think the outcomes can be counted pretty well. In these cases, successfully entered receipts into ERP or number of Entries captured in salesforce. I am sure there are cases where outcomes are…

> But in some cases, for instance, my accounting agent would only get paid if he successfully uploads my tax returns. I think you'd want it to correctly compute your taxes. Especially if you get a letter a year or two after the fact saying you owe the government money

Indeed. The whole AI game is predicated on the fact that they can deliver work equivalent to humans in some cases. If that is never going to be the case, then this whole agentic stuff goes belly-up.

The alternative scenario is they get better and do some work really well. That is an interesting territory to focus on.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#69

Post by rajvarkala » Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 5:24 PM UTC

lbreakjai wrote: post #67

rajvarkala wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agent builder loses contract .. Is this not force enough to make AI worthwhile?

Why would the AI care? The agent builder is still asking a non-deterministic black box with no skin in the game to behave a certain way, they have no guarantees.

If the AI is never going to be manageable, never trustable, then the whole idea of agentic systems is dumb.

What is the point of an agent running and you don't trust it?

That would be equivalent to calling this whole AI wave useless. May be it is, maybe it is not.

Re: Why outcome-billing makes sense for AI Agents

#70

Post by lbreakjai » Fri, Dec 19, 2025, 2:52 AM UTC

rajvarkala wrote: post #69

lbreakjai wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the AI care? The agent builder is still asking a non-deterministic black box with no skin in the game to behave a certain way, they have no guarantees.

If the AI is never going to be manageable, never trustable, then the whole idea of agentic systems is dumb. What is the point of an agent running and you don't trust it? That would be equivalent to calling this whole AI wave useless. May be it is, maybe it is not.

That's ... how they fundamentally work?