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

Episode Artifact

Tim Harting on LinkedIn

Gavin Franklin on LinkedIn

Greg Banks on LinkedIn

Jason Fowler Music

Cirrius Solutions

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