Half of Sold AI Agents Are Just LLMs Wrapped in If-Statements
WalkCareful7005 · reddit · 2026-08-11
After auditing numerous AI agents sold to clients, the author found a common pattern: stripping away the "agent" label reveals fixed workflows with a single LLM call for classification or rewriting, lacking real planning or tool selection.
This misleading framing creates two major issues. It sets unrealistic client expectations for adaptability, and it pushes builders to implement complex agentic loops where a simple deterministic workflow would be cheaper and more reliable.
The author advocates for reserving the term "agent" for the minority of systems that genuinely require autonomous planning to handle messy, unpredictable inputs.
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