How do I build a real system around an AI model?

You can call an API, but building a real system around a model overwhelms you, and that jump is bigger than it looks from the outside. Calling the model is one line. A real system is everything around that line: handling bad inputs, managing cost, dealing with slow or failed calls, storing results, keeping it safe. It is natural to feel flooded, because you went from one problem to twenty at once.\nThe way through is to stop seeing it as one giant system and see it as a small chain of ordinary parts. Something comes in, you prepare it, you call the model, you check what comes back, you do something with the result, you handle the case where it breaks. None of those pieces is exotic on its own. The overwhelm comes from trying to hold the whole chain in your mind at once instead of building it one link at a time.\nStart by writing down that flow in plain words, just the steps from input to output, including what happens when something fails. Then build the simplest version that runs end to end, even if each part is crude. Once the whole chain works simply, you improve one link at a time. A rough system that runs beats a perfect one you are too overwhelmed to start.