Does Speaking to Agents Like Cavemen Save 65% of Tokens? We Test

JetBrains' rigorous testing of the 'Caveman' AI agent optimization skill reveals a significant gap between vendor claims (65% token savings) and real-world performance (8.5% actual savings on coding tasks), with no measurable impact on output quality. For IT organizations adopting agentic AI in development workflows, this demonstrates the critical importance of independent benchmarking before committing to optimization techniques, as advertised efficiency gains may not translate to meaningful cost reductions when applied to code generation and tool execution rather than conversational AI. The finding underscores that while the skill is safe to deploy, realistic ROI expectations should focus on high-single-digit percentage improvements rather than transformative cost reduction.