# The economics of agent scale: tokens, ROI, and building platforms for AI-first teams (Part 2)

DevFeed: [The economics of agent scale: tokens, ROI, and building platforms for AI-first teams (Part 2)](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-economics-of-agent-scale-tokens-roi-and-building-platforms-for-ai-first-teams-part-2-2218.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/09/03/the-economics-of-agent-scale/>)

Author: Eira May

Published: 2026-09-03T07:40:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Stack Overflow Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/stack-overflow-blog.md>)

Topics: [AI Bots](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-bots.md>), [ai observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-observability.md>)

Tags: [agent](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agent.md>), [agentic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic.md>), [agentic-ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic-ai.md>), [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-agents.md>), [business](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/business.md>), [cost](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cost.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [engineering-leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-leadership.md>), [google](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/google.md>), [infrastructure](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/infrastructure.md>), [leaders-of-code](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/leaders-of-code.md>), [model](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/model.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/observability.md>), [php](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/php.md>), [platform](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/platform.md>), [platform-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/platform-engineering.md>), [podcast](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/podcast.md>), [scale](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scale.md>), [science](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/science.md>), [tooling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tooling.md>), [work](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/work.md>)

## AI overview

A podcast discussion on operating AI agents at scale, focusing on token efficiency, cost governance, context management, and platform tooling and observability.

## Source excerpt

Andi Gutmans, head of Agentic Data Cloud at Google, returns for the second half of his Leaders of Code conversation to talk through the cost and infrastructure side of agentic development. ICYMI, part one covered judgment, code review, and data activation.