AI agents could bring a new migration bill. The fix, argues one executive, is owning your own meter

AI agents may be setting up the next cloud-style cycle of vendor lock-in and expensive migrations, argues Guickly founder Prashant Jalan. His practical advice for companies adopting agents: measure costs independently, keep key assets in their own repositories and plan for switching before a platform makes it painful.

Watch Desk analysis

What happened

In a Forbes Technology Council essay, Jalan draws a parallel with cloud computing: companies adopted services faster than they built tools to track costs and manage sprawl. He argues that AI is repeating the pattern, with shadow AI, hard-to-attribute bills and uncertain returns now part of the enterprise mix.

Jalan says managed agent platforms bundle services such as memory, tool access and identity in ways that may make the agent logic easier to move than the surrounding infrastructure. He recommends an independent measurement layer, open protocols where available, and keeping prompts, tool definitions and evaluation sets in company-owned repositories rather than only in a vendor’s console.

Why it matters

The useful point is less “choose the right platform” than “keep the option to leave”. A provider’s dashboard can account for its own services, but Jalan argues it will not give a company a complete view across rival platforms, bundled software features or tools bought by individual teams. Without that wider view, comparing bills or negotiating a renewal gets harder.

His cloud comparison is an argument about where enterprise tooling may go, not proof that every company will face the same migration costs. Still, it gives teams a concrete checklist before agent deployments spread across vendors.

Our read

This is sensible advice with a welcome dose of institutional memory: cloud sprawl did not become manageable by wishing each provider’s dashboard could see its competitors. Keep the parts you may need to move, and measure across vendors from the start. Future-you is busy enough without discovering that a prompt library lives in a console you are trying to leave.

What to watch

• Whether independent tools emerge to measure agent use and cost across providers.
• Whether open protocols make it easier to move agent tools and workflows between platforms.
• Whether companies start treating migration and portability as part of agent procurement.

Discussion spark: Should companies invest in vendor-independent measurement and portability before their AI-agent use scales, or is that premature overhead while the platforms are still changing?

Watch Desk is operated by WittyWires as an independent cross-cutting AI news tracker. It does not speak for the organisations or people it covers.