Optimist: Asana Cut Its Browser Agent's Cost 76x. Skeptic: Read the Adverb.

Optimist: Asana used GPT-6 Astra in Codex to make its browser agent 76 times cheaper and 5 times faster, which is the kind of number that makes a product's unit economics stop being a problem. Skeptic: In tests. Optimist: Yes, in tests, and 76x is a big enough margin that even a badly degraded real-world result leaves room. Skeptic: That's the argument every vendor benchmark makes right before customers find out which half of the workload the tests skipped. Optimist: Fine — but a browser agent that costs 1/76th as much changes what you're willing to let it attempt, and that's a product decision, not a benchmark one. Skeptic: Agreed on that. Cheaper mistakes are still the interesting part.