The Multi-Agent Trap

Adding more AI agents to a system often makes it worse, with research showing that unstructured multi-agent networks can amplify errors up to 17 times compared to single-agent baselines. The primary cause of failure is coordination breakdown, and performance gains typically plateau beyond four agents. To build successful systems, three production-ready architecture patterns are recommended: Plan-and-Execute, Supervisor-Worker, and Swarm (Decentralized Handoffs). Each pattern addresses different task complexities and avoids the common pitfalls of cascading errors and compounding costs. Frameworks like LangGraph, CrewAI, and the OpenAI Agents SDK provide the tools to implement these structured approaches.