Everyone wants AI agents. Fewer people want AI agents that actually work. Here's the boring truth about building agents that don't hallucinate.
Guardrails are not optional
An AI agent without guardrails is a liability. You need:
- Input validation (don't let users inject prompts)
- Output validation (check that responses are in scope)
- Tool call validation (don't let the agent do anything dangerous)
- Rate limiting (don't let the agent run away with your budget)
Evaluation is everything
You can't improve what you don't measure. Build an evaluation suite before you build the agent. Test it on real examples. Measure accuracy, latency, cost.
The boring engineering
Most of the work in building a good AI agent is boring:
- Writing clear system prompts
- Building robust error handling
- Logging everything
- Writing tests
The difference between a demo and a product is about 6 months of boring engineering.
If you're building an AI agent and it's not working reliably — reach out. We can help you build something that actually works in production.