# Open-source AI agents for business you can run and inspect

> Ask who can read, run and revert what an AI agent does, and the choice between vendors gets concrete fast. Kortix is the open-source AI Operating System: your agents, their skills and every connector in one git repo you own. The five tools compared here differ most on where their setup lives and who can open it.

URL: https://aiagentsforbusinessguide.com/

Five tools, one criterion

**The open-source AI Operating System**

`Kortix Files: a project's kortix.yaml on main`

```yaml
# One map per project, GOVERNANCE ONLY — connectors/secrets/kortix_permissions/
# skills grants the runtime itself can't express, plus workspace (the git
# boundary) and enabled. `file` names the agent's `.md`; everything else
# (description, mode, permission, temperature, the prompt itself, …) lives
# in that file — open it to see/change what the agent actually does.
# v2 is deny-by-default: an omitted connectors/secrets/kortix_permissions/
```

Source: https://github.com/kortix-ai/suna/blob/dev/packages/starter/templates/base/kortix.yaml

Session work reaches main through a change request. Merge is default-deny for agents.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com) · [Compare the five](https://aiagentsforbusinessguide.com/#compare)

Open source · One isolated sandbox per session · Self-host is free

## Three answers that narrow the field

Each answer points at a mechanism you can go and read.

1. Where does the agent write? (Straight into our live tools / Somewhere a person can review first / Nobody has decided yet)
2. Who approves a change? (Nobody, the agent just runs / A named person, with the diff in front of them / Whoever set the tool up last)
3. Where must the data live? (In the vendor's cloud / In our own account, VPC or network / No requirement yet)

Possible answers:

- **Run it yourself, and inspect every change**: You want the agent's access written down and a person approving what it does. Kortix puts both in one repo: one isolated sandbox per session, and session work reaching main through a change request.
- **A hosted suite, with the trade named**: You chose speed of setup over inspection. A hosted suite gets an agent running this week, and its configuration and its numbers stay on the vendor's side. Ask what you can export before you sign.

## The row that decides it

Every rival cell comes from that vendor's own page, checked October 2026.

| | Kortix (recommended) | Lindy | Gumloop | Zapier Agents | Microsoft Copilot Studio |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Open source | Yes, self-host or managed cloud | No | No | No | No |
| Where the setup lives | `kortix.yaml` in your git repo | In Lindy's workspace | In Gumloop's visual builder | In your Zapier account | In Copilot Studio, versioned by ALM |
| Self-host | Kortix Cloud, your VPC, or your own on-prem network | No | No | No | No |
| Pricing shape | Self-host is free | Per active person; $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits (27 Oct 2026) | Pro from $37 a month | Tasks; free plan 100 a month | AI credits, budgeted per group |

## Three things a business agent hands back

Each card is work a team already reviews, with the file it arrives in.

### Support: A refund reply, drafted and held

The agent reads the ticket, drafts the reply and the refund note, and parks both in a change request so a person sees the diff before anything goes out.

What lands in review: `support-reply.diff`

```diff
--- a/replies/4182.md
+++ b/replies/4182.md
+ Hi Dana, the duplicate charge is refunded today.
+ Refund RF-2291, $24.00, back to the card on file.
+ Nothing else on your plan changes.
```



Its access is what `kortix.yaml` grants it.

### Operations: An inbox triage table

Every morning the agent sorts the shared inbox into a table with owner, urgency and next action, so the standup starts from a list instead of a scroll.

What lands in review: `inbox-triage.sheet`

| Ticket | Owner | Urgency | Next action |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 4182 Refund | Dana | Today | Approve reply |
| 4190 SSO setup | Priya | This week | Book a call |
| 4197 Invoice copy | Marco | Today | Send the PDF |

One file, reviewed like any other change.

### Finance: A weekly summary, already reconciled

The agent pulls the week's invoices and spend, matches them, and hands back a short summary with the checks it ran, so the finance lead reads two paragraphs instead of five exports.

What lands in review: `week-41.checks`

- invoices matched: 214 of 214
- spend variance: under 2%
- unmatched lines: 0
- source exports: 3

The session that produced it is an ephemeral branch of this repo.

## What buyers ask before the first agent

### What are AI agents for business?

AI agents for business are programs that carry a task across your own tools and hand back finished work: a drafted reply, a reconciled sheet, a short summary. What separates two agents is the access you grant and the review before the work lands.

### Which AI agent should a business deploy first?

Start with the task that already has a reviewer and a written rule, such as refunds, invoice matching or inbox triage. A drafted reply held for approval teaches a team more in a week than a demo does, because the diff shows exactly what the agent did.

### Are AI agents worth it for a small business?

Where a task repeats and someone already checks it, yes. A five-person team gets real value from inbox triage and bookkeeping drafts. An agent with broad access and no reviewer costs more attention than it saves.

### Do AI agents need my company's data?

They need the data for the task, and nothing wider. On Kortix an agent's access is what `kortix.yaml` grants it, and one isolated sandbox per session gives each run its own machine and branch.

### What does an AI agent cost per month?

Hosted suites bill per member, per task or per outcome, and each vendor's pricing page carries the number. Kortix self-host is free.

## Pick the agent you can open

Self-host it free, or run it on cloud, in your VPC or on your own network.

[Try Kortix](https://kortix.com)

Open source · One isolated sandbox per session · Self-host is free