Intelligence Slider

Pick a number between 0 and 100. That's your cost vs. quality tradeoff.

---

The idea

Most AI platforms make you choose a model upfront. But why should a simple "what time is it?" go to the same model as "design a microservices architecture"?

The Intelligence Slider routes requests based on complexity. Set it low, and simple tasks go to fast/cheap models. Set it high, and you get the reasoning engines with extended thinking.

---

Tiers

Economy (0-40%)

Fast models for high-volume, simple tasks.

Setting	Models
0-20%	Claude Haiku, GPT-4o-mini
21-40%	Claude Haiku, GPT-4o-mini (more context)

Good for:

• Q&A

• Code formatting

• Text processing

• Anything you'd run thousands of times

Balanced (41-60%)

The workhorse tier. Good enough for most things.

Setting	Models
41-50%	Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o
51-60%	Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o (enhanced reasoning)

Good for:

• Code generation

• Document analysis

• Research

• Most day-to-day work

Premium (61-100%)

The heavy hitters. Extended thinking enabled.

Setting	Models
61-80%	Claude Opus, GPT-4o
81-100%	Claude Opus, o1 (full extended thinking)

Good for:

• Architecture design

• Debugging complex issues

• Critical business logic

• Anything where you'd rather pay more than get it wrong

---

Extended thinking

Above 60%, models that support it get extended thinking enabled. The model can:

• Break down problems step by step

• Consider multiple approaches

• Catch its own mistakes

• Go deeper on analysis

It's slower and costs more. But for the hard stuff, it's worth it.

---

Setting the slider

In the UI

There's a slider in the chat settings. Drag it.

Via SDK

const agent = client.createAgent({
  intelligenceLevel: 75
});

Via API

curl -X PUT https://chat.agenticwork.io/api/admin/slider \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-key" \
  -d '{"value": 75}'

Per user

Admins can set defaults per user:

await client.admin.setUserIntelligence(userId, 90);

---

What it costs

Rough numbers:

Tier	Cost	What you get
0-40%	$1	100 simple requests
41-60%	$3-5	50 moderate requests
61-100%	$10-50	10-20 complex requests

Actual costs vary by provider and token usage.

---

Tips

1. Start low - See if 30% handles your use case before cranking it up

2. Match complexity - A formatting task doesn't need Opus

3. Watch the metrics - The admin portal shows cost breakdowns

4. Set sensible defaults - Different user tiers can have different defaults