How to control AI agent spending

An agent that can call paid tools needs financial context before it acts. A wallet alone does not tell the agent whether a purchase is allowed.

The practical model

• Set a monthly budget per agent.
• Set a per-transaction ceiling.
• Require approval above a threshold.
• Require approval for new vendors and subscriptions.
• Keep the policy decision in the economic ledger.

How Alem approaches it

Alem evaluates a proposed economic action against a workspace-bound policy and returns allow, deny or requires_approval. The same trace can later be connected to settlement and ROI.

What is live today

Alem's sandbox includes company workspaces, agent registry, budgets, spend policies, human approvals, economic ledger, ROI, HTTP/OpenAPI and MCP. Live payment execution remains private beta / integration-stage.