About
About Gary in the Loop
What it is
A cartoon about AI agents and the human in the loop. Brad went AI-first. The AI marks everything done. Every ticket still lands on Gary's desk, and nobody counts what Gary costs.
Who makes it
The VARIA team. VARIA prices an AI decision flow before you build it (tokens, the people still in the loop, wrong routes, the wait) and shows where to cut.
How it's made
AI-assisted animation: drawings from an image model and synthetic voices, written and edited by people. Characters and voices are AI-generated.
The numbers
When a clip jokes about money, its page shows the real number behind it. Those come from the VARIA demo support flow and are modelled, not measured at a customer: the machines cost $0.0010 a ticket, people $0.90 and wrong routes $0.42; 28% of tickets still reach a person; one human touch costs $3.
Questions people ask
- What is Gary in the Loop?
- A cartoon about an AI-first office. The AI marks tickets done, and Gary, the one person left in support, still gets them.
- What does the human in the loop cost in AI support?
- In the VARIA demo support flow, 28% of tickets still reach a person. At $3 a human touch, people cost $0.90 a ticket and the machines $0.0010 (all modelled). The Gary bill runs the same maths on your numbers.
- What is VARIA?
- A tool that prices an AI decision flow before you build it: tokens, the people still in the loop, wrong routes and the wait, plus where to cut. It lives at heyvaria.com.
- Can I send Gary a story?
- Yes, on the Tell Gary page. The best stories may become clips, with names and details changed.
Made up
Brad, Gary, the AI and the cat are fictional, and so is their company. Any resemblance to your office is a coincidence. Probably.
What we keep
- Stories you send: the text, the role you picked, your email if you gave one, and a one-way hash of your IP address that stops floods. Stored privately and read by the VARIA team.
- Analytics: Google Analytics on garyintheloop.com with consent mode. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland analytics cookies stay off; Global Privacy Control turns them off anywhere; ad storage is off for everyone.
- To have a story deleted, write to itsme@garyintheloop.com.