The pitch deck says "AI decides in seconds"
A founder walks into a kickoff with a polished mockup: upload a document, AI reads it, the app instantly recommends next steps and routes the case to the right queue. The design looks great. The demo video looks great. Nobody in the room has run a single real document through the model yet.
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The dependency nobody priced in
Once that feature ships, its quality does not track your implementation partner's skill alone. It also tracks something your partner cannot fully control: how well a third party's AI model does that exact job on your actual data. Build the best plumbing in the world, and the water quality still is not up to you.
The golden rule before you sign the full contract
Before you commission the whole platform, build the throwaway version first: a proof of concept. Bare bones, no visual design, maybe an ugly form and a text box. Its only job is to take real input, send it to the AI provider, and hand back whatever comes out.
What the throwaway needs to do
It needs one thing the finished product will not: a place for you to edit the system prompt and try again. Feed it real cases from your business, adjust the instructions you give the model, and watch how the answers move. This is where you find out if the feature is buildable at all.
Two ways this ends
Either your tuning gets you answers you would actually ship, and it is time to build the real platform, with this partner or another. Or it does not, no matter how many prompts and providers you try, and the honest move is to shelve the idea rather than fund a platform around it.
Shelve it, do not delete it
Put a date on the calendar about three months out, a realistic gap for the next model generation to land. Rerun the same throwaway system against it. Repeat until either the answers hold up or you decide the whole idea depended on AI clearing a bar it has not reached yet.