Cut multi-agent costs 40–60% with model tiering: capable orchestrator, cheap specialist workers

Beam AI·medium signal

In the orchestrator-worker pattern, run the orchestrator (which plans and assembles results) on a capable model and the workers (narrow, repetitive subtasks) on cheaper task-specific models — production reports put the savings at 40–60% with no quality loss. The key insight is that workers don't need frontier reasoning; they need tight scope and good instructions. This is distinct from the manager-planner pattern, where the plan itself is discovered through collaboration rather than known upfront.