Jason M. Lemkin

90% of AI Agents Idle—Unlock Real‑time Lead Engagement

We have 20+ agents in production across Replit, Salesforce, Artisan, Monaco, Slack, and other platforms. We run a company with 3 humans that used to have 20+. And all of our agents sit idle 90% of the time. Every human thinks they're too busy to follow up with the B leads. Every agent is sitting there waiting for more work. We have an order of magnitude more capacity than we had pre-agents. That's not an exaggeration. It's literal. Even Amelia Lerutte , who manages most of our agents, admitted last week at SaaStr AI 2026 that her agents went idle for days because she was sprinting on production deadlines. The agents were ready. She just didn't have time to feed them. Right now, the best way to use that capacity is simple: make sure every lead, every prospect, every customer gets touched in real time. No one left behind. That alone justifies the entire agentic stack. But what happens when we actually figure out how to use the other 90%? I don't know yet. But it's going to change how companies think about headcount, pricing, coverage, and what "capacity" even means. If your agents are sitting idle, that's not a problem. That's an opportunity you haven't figured out yet.