Why AI Projects Fail at the Production Stage
The gap between AI demo and AI deployment is where most projects die. Demonstrations work with clean data, controlled inputs, and forgiving audiences. Production operates with messy data, unexpected inputs, and users who have real work to do.
Bridging this gap requires engineering discipline, not just data science. It means building robust data pipelines, handling edge cases gracefully, monitoring for degradation, and designing for reliability. These aren't glamorous capabilities, but they're what separates AI that delivers value from AI that gathers dust.