Our AI projects follow a phased approach that differs from traditional software because results are uncertain until you see them:
Phase 1 — Discovery (1-2 weeks): Define the business problem, success metrics, and constraints. Audit your existing data — quality, volume, labels. Estimate feasibility.
Phase 2 — Data preparation (2-6 weeks): Data cleaning, labeling (if needed), feature engineering, baseline establishment. This is often the longest phase and frequently underestimated.
Phase 3 — Model development (4-12 weeks): Build candidate models using TensorFlow, Scikit-learn, or LLM-based architectures with LangChain/LlamaIndex for RAG. Evaluate against metrics defined in Phase 1, iterate. We deliver an evaluation report comparing approaches.
Phase 4 — Integration and testing (2-4 weeks): Connect the model to your application, build API endpoints, load testing, edge case handling.
Phase 5 — Deployment and monitoring (1-2 weeks initial, then ongoing): Production deployment on SageMaker, Vertex AI, or Azure ML, with monitoring for model drift, performance degradation, and unusual inputs.
Total timeline: 3 to 7 months for production AI systems. We share findings at each phase so you can pivot or stop if the technical risk is higher than expected — this is genuinely possible in AI work, unlike traditional development.