---
title: Taxonomy of Agent Consumption
description: Three models of how agents consume goods and services: as principal consumers, as procurement layers, and in hybrid consumption patterns.
author: get-headless
section: foundations
order: 2
url: https://get-headless.ai/knowledge-base/taxonomy-of-consumption/
---

# Taxonomy of Agent Consumption

Three models of how agents consume goods and services: as principal consumers, as procurement layers, and in hybrid consumption patterns.

## How agents consume

Not all agent consumption looks the same. There are three distinct patterns through which agents participate in the headless economy.

## 1. Agent as principal consumer

The agent directly consumes the capability or output as part of its own workflow.

**Examples:**
- An agent calls an OCR API
- An agent invokes a ranking model
- An agent uses a CLI tool or MCP server
- An agent reads structured documentation
- An agent queries a proprietary dataset
- An agent consumes a free or paid search endpoint

This is the clearest and most direct form of headless consumption.

## 2. Agent as procurement layer

The agent acquires a good or service on behalf of a human or organization, but is not the ultimate consumer of that good.

**Examples:**
- An agent purchases software seats for a company
- An agent buys physical goods for a household
- An agent handles delegated spending for a human principal

This includes much of agentic commerce. It is part of the headless economy, but not its entire scope.

## 3. Hybrid consumption

The agent consumes intermediate goods or capabilities in order to generate an output for a human or another system.

**Examples:**
- An agent accesses filings, articles, and data to produce a briefing
- An agent combines free and paid tools to complete a research workflow
- An agent consumes compute, models, and documents to produce a work product

This is likely the most common real-world pattern. It connects direct machine consumption with human benefit.

---

Source: get-headless.ai — a publication on the headless economy.
Knowledge base index: https://get-headless.ai/api/knowledge-base.json