Will AI Agents Push Customers to the Lowest-cost Provider?

Cliff Sosin says that once people hand routine choices to an AI agent, the customer moves to the lowest-cost provider. He puts decisions on a spectrum. An insured bank deposit can be delegated: take the highest rate. A favorite sweater cannot. The agent can find options, and the person still has to choose. Garbage collection, in his stylized example, sits near the deposit. A cheaper hauler still struggles to win a switch today, because many people do not know what they pay and will not spend attention on it. An agent can hear an offer of 50 cents a month, confirm the trash still gets picked up, and switch.

A second effect is coordination on a street. One truck serving every house is cheaper, but neighbors are too lazy to line up on the same hauler, so the low-cost operator cannot roll the street up. Agents take that friction away. The operator who already serves two houses can offer everyone else a lower price, win the street, and become cheaper still. The low-cost producer then wins more volume at thinner margins. Many real companies, he says, have mixed effects that point both ways. This is his picture of how agents change a market, not advice to buy or avoid any business.