I love Claude. I've built entire workflows on it. I'm also not running it right now.
Here's what happened.
A few months ago I built my first AI agent platform. OpenClaw. It worked well enough to prove the concept: an AI that runs autonomously, handles research, manages projects, writes code. I still have it sitting there, ready to spin back up if my current setup takes a wrong turn. But I haven't opened it since.
The replacement is Hermes, an open-source agent framework from Nous Research. Three things changed the game.
First, memory. Hermes carries context across sessions. I open it in the morning and it remembers what we were doing yesterday. I don't retype preferences. I don't re-explain my business. This sounds small until you live with an agent that starts cold every single time.
Second, it builds skills. Every time I teach it something, a workflow, a brand voice, a technical process, it captures that capability. The agent actually gets sharper with use. Most software degrades with complexity. This one compounds.
The third thing is the part I keep circling back to: you can change the mind.
I ran an experiment. Instead of Claude, the premium model I usually reach for, I pointed everything at DeepSeek V4 Pro. The results surprised me. Strong reasoning, clean code generation, capable research. At a fraction of the cost. The agent didn't lose its memory. It didn't lose any of the skills I'd taught it. The brain changed underneath, but the knowledge stayed intact.
This is the insight I think most people miss. The model is not the product. The harness around the model, the memory system, the skill building, the tool connections. That's where the leverage lives. When you get that right, you can swap the engine without rebuilding the car.
I love the Claude models. I'm also not running them right now. I moved past my first build, OpenClaw, and switched to Hermes. The difference has been hard to ignore. Memory is built in. It builds its own skills, getting sharper the more I work with it. And you can change the mind of the harness itself. I pointed everything at DeepSeek V4 Pro. Strong output, a small fraction of the cost. The best AI setup is rarely the most expensive one. It's the one tuned to how you actually work.
For anyone building systems that should improve over time instead of break down, the lesson holds: invest in the infrastructure. The model will catch up.
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