Data Bricklaying Diary

Sep 18, 2026 · Artificial Intelligence

Self-Built AI Agents: Which Capabilities Are Worth the Engineering Investment?

The article argues that while building custom AI agent tooling is feasible, teams should first use existing solutions for representative tasks, measure full-lifecycle costs including human intervention and maintenance, and only invest in proprietary development for business-specific knowledge, internal system adapters, and critical control gaps that generic tools cannot address.