Custom Agent or Built-In AI? A Practical Checklist for Making the Right Choice

Custom AI agents make sense for recurring work that needs the same context, structure, and tools every time.

The author built an investigation agent to cut repeated prompting, connect to Jira and Confluence, and standardize team documentation.

For most coding tasks, built-in plan-and-agent workflows are still preferred because they offer more oversight and flexibility.

The key question is whether the time saved on repeatable work justifies the effort to build and maintain an agent.