A fascinating pattern has emerged in the development of enterprise AI infrastructure. While many teams focus on improving model quality, the real challenges arise when AI agents reach production scale. At this point, the issues that come to the forefront are surprisingly similar to those faced by SaaS billing teams in the past, including orchestration, retries, entitlements, rate limits, and auditability.

This convergence is aptly summed up by the notion that agents in 2026 are the billing systems of 2017. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, it’s essential to recognize and address these operational complexities to ensure the smooth deployment and management of AI agents.

Photo by panumas nikhomkhai on Pexels
Photos provided by Pexels