{
  "id": 13650013,
  "title": "The economics of agents",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/11/the-economics-of-agents",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-11T04:56:43.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Marginal Revolution",
    "slug": "marginal-revolution",
    "url": "https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/10/the-economics-of-agents.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In his recent reflections on the role of agents within the economy, Patrick Collison highlights several key points. Companies, in a sense, can be considered the first superintelligence, with their ample cognitive surplus allowing them to advance their interests over those of consumers. This advantage becomes even more pronounced with the advent of personal agents, which can lead to more rational interactions between consumers and companies.\n\nCertain methods of price discrimination and customer cross-subsidization could become less effective with personal agents, which would hunt relentlessly for deals and coupons. Consequently, firms may place greater emphasis on producing high-quality products, as personal agents would value this aspect. This increase in focus on quality could, in turn, make product information more valuable and impactful, as agents would have an insatiable appetite for such data.\n\nA crucial question remains regarding the potential impact on superstar effects versus dispersion in the market. With agents acting as a more impartial value attribution system, it may ultimately lead to higher rewards for better products, resulting in increased quality and potentially more volatile prices as collusion attempts occur. Overall, Collison believes that agents hold the potential to significantly reshape the economic landscape, paving the way for more effective and valuable products.",
  "summary": "From Patrick Collison: Assorted things I’ve been mulling over regarding agents in the economy: • Companies are in some sense the original superintelligence. It’s often the case that they can use their amortized cognitive surplus to advance their interests against those of certain consumers: relative to the optimization capacity of companies, consumers can be inattentive, […] The post The…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}