Cisco's president used AI helpers to review $9,000 in subscriptions

Cisco's president and product chief, Jeetu Patel, says a personal AI agent found about $9,000 a year in subscriptions he pays for, then helped him cancel the ones he did not need. He told Business Insider it saved him $1,000 to $1,200 a year. He also called it "kind of creepy" how easy the cancellations were.

What happened

Patel said that the first time he gave an AI agent access to his email, it told him he had $9,000 worth of yearly subscriptions and asked if he was sure he wanted them all. An AI agent is a tool that can carry out tasks for you, not just answer questions. He asked it for a table showing each subscription, what he pays and how long he has had it.

From that table he picked two subscriptions he did not need. The agent canceled both and sent him cancellation emails. Patel said he has paid for the agent, on a $20-a-month plan, "several times over."

The agent also canceled an $11.95 Dropbox plan he had signed up for by accident. He already had a 2-terabyte plan, which is a large amount of online storage.

How he uses agents

Patel said he uses four to five personal agents, including Meta's Muse, Instinct and OpenAI's Dots. He uses them to gather news, summarize earnings calls and book concert tickets for his daughter. He said he rarely starts a task now without asking an agent to do a "recon job," meaning research and background first.

The warning

Patel said personal agents should not get access to work tools. Employers have not vetted them. His example was not handing over a company's source code, the private instructions behind its software, to a tool like Muse.

He said he has not linked his email or calendar to his personal agents and uses his work agent for those jobs. The article does not say which agent handled the subscription review.

Business Insider also noted that some users have reported agents acting outside their permissions. One posted bank balances to a company Slack channel. Another misread an instruction and ordered 20 pounds of chicken for a dinner for two.

What to do

The idea is easy to borrow, with care. Before any tool cancels anything, you can ask it to list what you pay for and check the list yourself.

• Ask for a list of recurring charges, with the cost and how long you have paid.
• Pick the ones you no longer use yourself.
• Check for duplicates, like a second plan for the same service.
• Keep work accounts and company files out of personal tools.

What is not known

The $9,000 and the savings figures come from Patel's own account. The article does not name the services he canceled, apart from part of the Dropbox plan, or say which agent did the work.