The Problem With AI Features
Most AI features get added because investors want to see AI, not because users asked for it. Before you integrate anything, answer this: what specific user problem does this solve that couldn't be solved without AI?
Streaming Is Non-Negotiable
Nobody wants to stare at a loading spinner for 8 seconds waiting for a full response. Use the Vercel AI SDK or OpenAI's streaming API to stream tokens as they're generated. The perceived speed difference is enormous.
Prompting Is Engineering
Treat your system prompts like code — version control them, review them, test them. A poorly written prompt will produce inconsistent results no matter how good the model is. Write explicit instructions, give examples, and define the output format clearly.
Handling Failures Gracefully
AI APIs fail, rate-limit, and return unexpected output. Build fallbacks. If the AI feature fails, the rest of your app should still work. Never make AI a hard dependency for core functionality.
The Features That Actually Work
Summarization, classification, and structured data extraction are consistently reliable. Open-ended generation is harder to control. Start with the former — they're easier to test and easier to trust.
Cost Is a Feature
Track your token usage from day one. It's easy to accidentally build a feature that costs $0.50 per user per session. Set budget alerts and design your prompts to be efficient, not just effective.