Why AI Power Users Run a Stack of Agents, Not Just One

Consumer-facing AI agents took off this year, and Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI are now going head-to-head in a market where no single product does everything. That's the blunt assessment of Jose Artigas, a business consultant working on AI strategy, who told AP: "there's not one holy grail-like agent right now that could do everything." His solution — and the one most experienced users have landed on — is a stack.

Why use several agents instead of one?

Artigas and many other regular users rely on a combination of tools from different AI labs for both work and home lives. Each company's consumer-facing agent targets a slightly different function, and access varies widely. Some agents are free, some require a monthly subscription, and others remain in testing or otherwise unavailable to the general public. Several also carry restrictions on availability outside the U.S.

The stack approach isn't just about coverage. It's about quality control. Clara Gigling, founder of Oudae Labs, a research lab building bespoke tools for agents, described her method: "What I like to do is to have this system of checks and balances in place where one agent does the work and then I let the other one critique and criticize it, and that way, they find mistakes, correct themselves and become better."

The takeaway: don't marry one agent if you want maximum output.

What is each agent actually good at?

The major AI companies market their agents differently — some lean professional, some lean personal.

• Anthropic's Claude Duet: built, the company said, for "professionals and small business owners with more on their plates than they can track." Artigas recommends it for anyone running a side hustle or launching a new business.
• OpenAI's Dots: Artigas calls it a debugger and problem solver for specialized technical work.
• Spear Street Technology's Instinct: suited for tedious emails, booking reservations and travel plans.
• Meta's Muse: pitched at tasks from "saving money and improving your health to smart shopping and helping you strengthen your relationships," per Meta. Artigas calls it the best entry point for novices because it's "very user-friendly" and offers prompts early on.

Claude Duet, Dots and xAI's Grok Bot have each been described as aiming to be like a colleague, or even a chief of staff. Muse and Instinct skew more toward personal assistant. That said, none of them is incapable of handling tasks outside those lanes.

Those three — Claude Duet, Dots and Instinct — are the agents Artigas uses most often.

How should you test an agent?

Trial and error is part of the process, experts say. Your preferences for interaction, how the agent communicates, and your own read on the quality of its output should determine which agents you keep and which tasks you delegate.

Gigling advises starting with tasks you consistently do, then choosing some to hand off. Be specific, she said: give the agent a detailed goal plus the required context and tools to achieve it.

Artigas narrows it further. "Start with one annoying, repeated thing that you keep putting off," he said — with one caveat: it has to be an online task. An agent can't fold your laundry or organize the junk drawer. A long email you don't want to write, or a flight you've been slow to book, are better starting points.

"You just have to experience the different agents and see what works best," Artigas said.

What information do you have to hand over?

Here's the trade-off: for an agent to act like a proactive assistant, it needs deep access to your life. Your inbox, your calendar, your personal identification information, even your credit card number and bank account are all par for the course if you want an agent to sort emails, book flights or do holiday shopping.

That has raised significant privacy concerns, including alarm over agents acting on user requests in unexpected ways.

"Curiosity is always a great starting point, just trying and playing around with it," Gigling said — but she also urged users to "be mindful" when sharing private information. Many companies have responded with privacy policies that explain how agents operate on dedicated cloud computers and how users can control their memory retention.

The bottom line: pick a stack, test it on real tasks, and decide deliberately how much of your digital life you're willing to share.