AI Agents vs. Human Labor

Brilliant analysis from Goldman comparing the salaries in different professions to the cost of an agent doing the same work.

The coding agent costs $13.39/day versus $300 for a human developer - 22x cheaper. Data entry is already at near-parity. Call center agents are marginally more expensive than humans, but model costs are falling fast.

Few takeaways:

• The first-order effect may be that AI will hurt the highest-paid workers the most. T

  he cost of expertise may come down. Doctors, lawyers, consultants, financial analysts, and engineers will be hit.

  On second thought, I think these professionals will now be able to cater to more people. Most people in the developing world cannot afford these professionals. AI can be a game-changer.

• As an investor, seeing that AI agents are at a comparable cost to human labor, makes me think that the uptake of these agents will absolutely explode in 2026 and 2027. Which firm will not want to reduce its cost of production?

We are still very early in the AI revolution. The size of this cycle (in terms of Capex and total spend) may continue to surprise us!