Question 520
A refunds assistant processes 1,000 requests monthly, saving eight minutes of reviewer time on each. Reviewer labor costs $45/hour. Inference and supervision cost $2,000 monthly. What is its annual net saving?
- $4,000 per year.
- $48,000 per year.
- $72,000 per year.
- $24,000 per year.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:The 8,000 minutes saved equal 133⅓ hours monthly or $6,000 gross; deducting $2,000 monthly yields $48,000 over twelve months.
Incorrect Answers
A:The $4,000 difference is a monthly net figure and must be multiplied by twelve.
C:This is the annualized gross reviewer saving and excludes the stated monthly inference and supervision costs.
D:That equals the yearly operating expense rather than the resulting net financial saving.
Question 521
A claim-document classifier avoids $4.50 of manual handling on each of 12,000 cases per year. Licensing costs $20,000 annually and exception reviewers cost $10,000 annually. Ignoring other effects, what is the annual net benefit?
- $30,000.
- $44,000.
- $24,000.
- $54,000.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:Gross avoided work is 12,000 × $4.50 = $54,000; deduct $30,000 in recurring costs to obtain $24,000.
Incorrect Answers
A:The combined licensing and exception-review expense is a cost, not the net benefit.
B:This subtracts only one cost line rather than both the $20,000 license and $10,000 review expense.
D:That counts only avoided manual handling and ignores the two documented recurring costs.
Question 522
A self-service assistant handles 6,000 queries yearly, saves three employee minutes each, and labor is valued at $80/hour. Annual platform cost is $15,000. What is the net annual value?
- $24,000.
- $15,000.
- $1,500.
- $9,000.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:The 18,000 saved minutes equal 300 hours worth $24,000; subtracting $15,000 leaves $9,000.
Incorrect Answers
A:This is gross labor value before subtracting the stated platform operating cost.
B:The platform bill is an expense and does not equal the net result of the saved labor.
C:This undercounts the converted annual analyst hours and is not the labor minus recurring-cost calculation.
Question 523
Option A costs $25,000 to develop plus $20,000 annually to maintain. Option B costs $5,000 to integrate plus $30,000 annually to license. Ignoring discounting, which is cheaper over three years?
- Option A by $10,000.
- Option B by $20,000.
- They tie at $90,000.
- Option A by $30,000.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:Three-year TCO is $85,000 for A and $95,000 for B, so the custom build costs $10,000 less.
Incorrect Answers
B:The smaller initial integration fee is offset by larger recurring licensing over three years.
C:Neither calculated total equals $90,000 when upfront and three annual payments are included.
D:This exceeds the actual difference between $85,000 and $95,000 in total ownership cost.
Question 524
For a two-year agent pilot, custom development costs $100,000 plus $10,000 per year, while a prebuilt service costs $15,000 setup plus $55,000 per year. Which option has lower two-year TCO?
- Custom development by $20,000.
- Custom development by $5,000.
- Prebuilt by $85,000.
- Both options tie at $125,000.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:The build totals $120,000 and the prebuilt option $125,000 when both setup and two annual payments are included.
Incorrect Answers
A:The actual two-year difference is only $5,000 after recurring charges are calculated.
C:This compares only the upfront fees and omits the much higher annual prebuilt service charge.
D:The prebuilt total is $125,000 but custom sums to $120,000, not the same amount.
Question 525
A SaaS agent charges $8,000 setup, $12,000 fixed annually, and $0.08 per task for 200,000 tasks annually. A custom build costs $62,000 upfront plus $14,000 yearly. Which is cheaper over three years?
- SaaS by $54,000.
- Both tie at $104,000.
- The SaaS agent by $12,000.
- Custom by $16,000.
Explanation
Correct Answer
C:SaaS has $16,000 yearly usage plus $12,000 fixed, totaling $92,000 over three years; custom totals $104,000.
Incorrect Answers
A:The SaaS plan still has substantial recurring costs, so its $8,000 setup fee is not total ownership cost.
B:The custom total is $104,000, but SaaS is $92,000 at the stated activity volume.
D:That uses a one-year usage cost as the total-cost difference and omits the full lifecycle comparison.
Question 526
A support agent costs $0.04 per successfully processed ticket with no minimum. A competing service charges $30,000 fixed annually. Annual demand is forecast at 500,000 tickets but could triple. What economic risk should the architect quantify?
- Assume the per-ticket option always costs less because its initial expense is zero.
- Assume the fixed service always costs less because it has a larger published annual price.
- Choose based only on the number of agent configuration screens rather than consumption risk.
- The workload-volume crossover and expected annual spending under baseline and high-demand scenarios.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:Variable costs would be $20,000 at baseline and $60,000 at triple volume, changing which option is cheaper.
Incorrect Answers
A:At 1.5 million tickets the metered charge rises above the fixed service cost.
B:At 500,000 tickets the metered alternative costs $10,000 less than the $30,000 fixed fee.
C:UI complexity does not determine variable exposure to ticket volume or total operating cost.
Question 527
A sales department already has an approved Copilot agent with customer-record lookup and role trimming. The new requirement adds one read-only contract-status field exposed by a supported connector. What cost-focused decision fits?
- Extend the existing agent and test the new scoped field against users with and without contract rights.
- Build a new independent portal solely to present the same field under a different color scheme.
- Fine-tune a foundation model to memorize the contract status instead of using the approved connector.
- Grant every salesperson full contract-administrator privileges to simplify the extension.
Explanation
Correct Answer
A:A supported additive read contract usually avoids duplicating the existing application, identity and maintenance stack.
Incorrect Answers
B:A presentation preference does not establish business value sufficient to replicate security and support systems.
C:A changing private status should be queried from its current source of record rather than embedded in weights.
D:The scope must still follow each user’s actual access rights even when a field is easy to add.
Question 528
A national utility needs an isolated on-premises service with no outbound network and a mandated local audit format. The available prebuilt SaaS agent cannot operate without cloud calls. Which choice is justified?
- Grant the hosted agent a permanent administrator token as a substitute for outbound connectivity.
- Evaluate a compliant locally deployable build or supported component that satisfies the hard offline and audit contracts.
- Select SaaS anyway because it is less expensive before adding infrastructure costs.
- Cache the hosted agent’s last response and describe it as current for all future service events.
Explanation
Correct Answer
B:A non-negotiable no-network requirement is a real fit gap that a hosted-only solution cannot satisfy.
Incorrect Answers
A:Credentials cannot create a network path and add security risk without resolving offline execution.
C:Even low subscription cost cannot make a mandatory network dependency work in an isolated environment.
D:Past generated text cannot handle new operational events or provide the required auditable decision context.
Question 529
A custom customer-service agent matches a prebuilt product’s answers but requires a new support team. The prebuilt option has an existing CRM integration and approved escalation path. Which TWO decision criteria matter most? (Select TWO.)
- Compare proven integration, permissions and human-escalation acceptance against the actual business requirement.
- Prefer custom solely because it produces more source-code files and integration endpoints.
- Prefer prebuilt solely because it has the largest vendor marketing brochure.
- Ignore the cost of migrating historical case state when switching systems.
- Quantify lifetime implementation, licensing, model-operations and support costs for both alternatives.
Explanation
Correct Answers
A:An existing validated CRM handoff is a functional asset that a replacement must match or improve.
E:True cost includes new team ownership and recurring operations, not only the initial programming effort.
Incorrect Answers
B:Implementation volume is not a measure of incremental value or safer service outcomes.
C:Product promotion does not establish fit for the organization’s real customer workflow and risk controls.
D:Legacy data and transition support can materially affect total ownership and cutover risk.
Question 530
A finance team wants to add a supplier-risk summary. It can extend a supported in-app agent or replace the entire process with a custom portal. What must the economic evaluation include?
- Only the custom model’s per-token price because all other application functions are already implemented.
- The number of prompt templates, without comparing user outcomes or operating cost.
- Assume a product replacement automatically inherits every role and audit configuration from the prior application.
- Training, identity integration, data migration, downtime, ongoing support and the value of any unsupported requirement.
Explanation
Correct Answer
D:A replacement has organizational and operational transition costs beyond its API or model price.
Incorrect Answers
A:A new portal still needs identity, audit, maintenance and business process integration.
B:Template counts do not show the real costs of either maintaining or migrating the process.
C:Access and evidence controls must be deliberately migrated and revalidated; identical names do not prove parity.
Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect (AB-100) Practice Tests