AI· 9 min
AI Agents in Production: Beyond the Demo
What it actually takes to ship an AI agent your customers can rely on.
AI agent demos are impressive. Production agents are a different discipline entirely.
Evals before agents
Before you deploy an agent, you need an evaluation suite that tests the outputs your users care about. Without evals, every prompt tweak is a coin flip.
Guardrails are non-negotiable
Input validation, output filtering, and human-in-the-loop for high-stakes actions turn a fun demo into a business tool.
Cost and latency compound
Every extra tool call multiplies cost and latency. Design agents with the fewest steps that solve the problem, and cache aggressively.