Episode 47 · Season 1
Agentic AI – Evolution of Agent Hosting
You picked your LLM, you picked your use case, and now someone hands you a list of hosting options that all sound like they solve the same problem. They don’t. In this episode, Tim Harting and Gavin Franklin of Cirrius Solutions break down the three real hosting models for AI agents – self-hosted, software-aligned, and the new wave of provider-hosted options from Anthropic and OpenAI – and how to decide which one fits which agent.
What you’ll learn:
- The real trade-offs between self-hosted, software-aligned, and provider-hosted agents – and why most companies end up running all three
- How Anthropic Cloud Managed Agents and OpenAI Workspace Agents actually differ in build model, lock-in, and how end users interact with them
- The four customer archetypes we keep seeing – platform-first enterprise, builder-heavy SaaS, knowledge-worker augmentation, and regulated industries – and the hosting mix each one tends to land on
- The questions to ask before you pick: where does the workflow live, do you have a platform team, how sensitive is the data, and how will you observe and evaluate the agent
Who it’s for:
Technology leaders, architects, and AI/platform teams choosing where their agents will run – and trying to avoid locking the whole company into a single platform before the use cases are even mapped.
Guest + credibility:
Tim Harting and Gavin Franklin lead Agentic AI strategy and delivery at Cirrius Solutions, a consulting firm working at the intersection of cloud, software engineering, data, and AI. They’re rolling these hosting decisions out with real customers every week and watching the provider landscape shift in real time.
Primary CTA:
Grab the companion artifact from the show notes – it’s the side-by-side decision framework for the three hosting models, plus the Anthropic vs. OpenAI comparison. Follow Cirrius Talk: Agentic AI for more episodes that cut through the noise.
Recommended Links & Resources
Any Questions: Reach out to us at CirriusTalk@cirriussolutions.com
We cover
- Exploring Self-Hosted Solutions
- Understanding Software-Aligned Agents
- Diving into Provider-Hosted Agents
- Comparing Anthropic and OpenAI Solutions
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction to AI Hosting Options
- 0:55Exploring Self-Hosted Solutions
- 8:33Understanding Software-Aligned Agents
- 15:12Diving into Provider-Hosted Agents
- 23:19Comparing Anthropic and OpenAI Solutions
Resources and downloads
The artifacts Greg’s team built for this episode, free to download.
Agentic AI – Evolution of Agent Hosting
A 9-slide visual guide explaining the three main models for hosting AI agents: Self-Hosted, Software-Aligned, and Provider-Hosted. Walks through each model’s architecture, tradeoffs, and ideal use cases, compares them across cost, data residency, lock-in, and time-to-value, and closes with a decision framework and a contrast of Anthropic’s Claude Managed Agents vs. OpenAI’s Workspace Agents.
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