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From the studio

That AI coworker app still sends a bill.

October 2026 · 4 minute read

There's a new kind of ad going around. A business owner gets a big quote for custom software and looks shocked. Then an AI assistant in their team chat builds the whole thing for them. It's a good ad, and some of it is true.

What AI coworkers do well

These tools live where your team already talks, like Slack or Microsoft Teams. You connect your accounts, ask in plain words, and the AI pulls reports, answers questions and even builds small apps. For a team that already works in chat and keeps tidy data, that can save real hours. We use AI every day, so we're not here to tell you it doesn't work.

How the process works

• You add the assistant to your team chat.
• You connect the tools you already pay for: your CRM, your calendar, your files.
• You ask for something. It writes code and runs it on its own computer in the cloud.
• What it builds lives on their platform, and every request spends credits.

That last step is the part worth slowing down on.

The move to credits

For twenty years, software charged by the seat. You paid for each person, and at least you knew what next month would cost. AI tools are moving to credits instead. You buy a bucket each month, and every task spends some of it.

There's a fair reason for it. AI costs real money every time it runs, and companies pass that on. But credits come with catches:

• They're hard to predict. A long back-and-forth can cost far more than a quick question.
• Unused credits often expire at the end of the month.
• When you run out mid-project, you top up or you wait.
• The price of a credit, and what a credit buys, can change.

A seat tells you what you'll pay. Credits ask you to guess.

Watch out for renting in disguise

Whether it's an AI tool, a platform or an agency, ask these before you sign:

1. If we stop paying, what happens to what was built? Can we take the code and the data with us?
2. Whose accounts does it run on, ours or yours?
3. What does a normal month cost for a team our size, and what makes it go up?
4. Do unused credits roll over?
5. When it breaks, who fixes it?

If the answers sound like "it stays with us," "ours," "it depends," "no" and "the AI," you're renting. That can be fine. Just know it going in.

Where we fit

We use the same kind of AI tools. We just point them at building something you keep. It runs on your own accounts, for a fixed price you see before we start. After that, your monthly bills are more like utilities: hosting, a database and a little AI usage.

And if renting really is cheaper for you, we'll say so. Add up what you pay today with the calculator on our Services page.

The bottom line

AI coworkers will keep getting better, and plenty of teams will use one. Our advice is the same as in our last two posts: rent what's cheap to rent, and own what runs your business.

Written by the Gigogram team. Where the work works for you.