From PoC to production: what breaks first

The first production failure is rarely model quality — it’s integration: identity, permissions, and data contracts.

Who maintains prompts, policies, and evaluation as the system evolves? Without a clear answer, drift wins.

Escalation, retries, and graceful degradation are not optional. Design the unhappy paths with the same care as the happy ones.

Quality has to be continuous and visible — to the team that builds the system and to the users who depend on it.