welcome

Thanks for purchasing the MEAP of The Art of AI Product Development. With AI now on the agendas of most technology companies, this book will provide you with the knowledge, clarity, and confidence you need to integrate AI into beautiful, intelligent, and commercially viable products.

My passion for AI started in 2005 as a sophomore college student. That was long before Deep Learning, Transformers, and foundational models, and I would meet quite a number of computer science students who had hardly ever heard of AI. At that time, AI was not exactly hot stuff.

Fast-forward almost 20 years, AI is front and center for consumers, businesses, and governments. AI models, data, and resources are widely accessible - it looks like anyone can use AI. But while the technological promise is enormous, a lot of skill, understanding, and expertise is needed to successfully integrate AI in the business context. AI is easy to prototype but hard to productionize - many companies fail to recognize this. Succumbing to hype and FOMO, they focus on the technological magic and forget about making it part of their business. Their AI efforts fall apart or get stuck at the level of playgrounds, sandboxes, and demos, never becoming full-fledged parts of their products.