--- title: The Work Begins After the Demo Works | daily.dev description: Getting AI to demo well is easy; running it reliably in production is roughly 70% of the real work. Key lessons: prefer deterministic workflows over agents... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The Work Begins After the Demo Works | daily.dev og:description: Getting AI to demo well is easy; running it reliably in production is roughly 70% of the real work. Key lessons: prefer deterministic workflows over agents... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/3s2pSLO8g.png og:image:alt: The Work Begins After the Demo Works og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The Work Begins After the Demo Works **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 9 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Getting AI to demo well is easy; running it reliably in production is roughly 70% of the real work. Key lessons: prefer deterministic workflows over agents unless the problem is genuinely unbounded (if you can draw the flowchart, build a workflow). LLMs are probabilistic, so evals are non-negotiable — budget 60–70% of dev time for them and run them continuously. AI coding tools have inverted the classic bottleneck: engineers now outpace product managers who can't write specs fast enough. AI also reintroduces marginal costs to software, making it a business-model question. Measure at three layers: system health, product usage, and business impact. Practical cost levers include model routing, prompt caching, batching, and right-sizing context. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Medium](https://daily.dev/posts/medium-tsnt0ik2g) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [From AI Prototype to Production: The Engineering Gaps Developers Often Miss](https://daily.dev/posts/from-ai-prototype-to-production-the-engineering-gaps-developers-often-miss-msmbjxcci) · SitePoint · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to think about agentic solutions for the enterprise](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-think-about-agentic-solutions-for-the-enterprise-znowkx8s6) · Temporal · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Six Choices Every AI Engineer Has to Make \(and Nobody Teaches\)](https://daily.dev/posts/six-choices-every-ai-engineer-has-to-make-and-nobody-teaches--y4hv094w3) · Towards Data Science · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI Evals for Solo Developers 2026: A Practical Guide](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-evals-for-solo-developers-2026-a-practical-guide-ms6ijzdsf) · Alex CloudStar · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#mcp](https://daily.dev/tags/mcp) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The Work Begins After the Demo Works","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g"},"datePublished":"2026-07-25T07:30:54.150Z","dateModified":"2026-07-25T07:31:48.537Z","description":"Getting AI to demo well is easy; running it reliably in production is roughly 70% of the real work. Key lessons: prefer deterministic workflows over agents...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/bb4aecafbbd27d0344ddb67c8062bc1c?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/bb4aecafbbd27d0344ddb67c8062bc1c?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-work-begins-after-the-demo-works-3s2pslo8g","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm,ai-agents,mcp","timeRequired":"PT9M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The Work Begins After the Demo Works"}]} ```