Plan your AI project.
Build it confidently.
Your guide to planning an AI software project.
Define the workflow, understand the costs and prepare a brief your development team can build from.
Define one useful workflow.
Write down who uses the product, what they provide and what a successful output looks like. “Generate a product video from a reference and product photo” is a clearer starting point than “build an AI platform.” Choose one core journey for the first release.
Example: a store owner uploads a product image, selects a video style, sees the generation cost, starts the job and downloads the result. Decide which of those steps must exist at launch.
Review the APIs before committing.
List the AI providers and outside systems the product needs. Check supported inputs, output formats, account permissions, commercial usage terms, usage limits and provider availability. Confirm these with the provider’s current documentation.
For imported links, define the supported sources and a manual upload alternative. In Viral Clone, reference and product imports form part of the workflow; access to an external source should not be assumed to work for every URL.
Treat generation as a process.
An AI job may take time or fail. Specify what users see while it runs, whether they can leave the page, where the result appears and how they retry. Define who can view, download or delete each creation.
Create acceptance examples for success, unsupported inputs, provider errors and repeated submissions. A polished generation button is only one part of the product.
Separate development from running costs.
Development scope includes screens, accounts, integrations, billing logic, administration, testing and deployment. Ongoing costs can include model usage, hosting, storage, email and payment processing. Ask for both sets of assumptions in the proposal.
A useful usage estimate starts with active users × generations per user × provider cost per generation. Add expected retries, storage and other services separately. Different models may have different costs; recheck pricing before launch.
Agree on what happens when a job fails.
If you use points or credits, decide when they are reserved, deducted and refunded. Write rules for failed jobs, duplicate requests and provider timeouts. Payment status and generation status should be accounted for separately.
Viral Clone includes visible generation costs, points history and refunds for failed generations. Your product needs its own rules, including what counts as a completed result and which exceptions require an administrator.
Know what your team will receive.
Agree on code ownership, deployment access, provider accounts, documentation and support responsibilities. Include the administration workflows needed to investigate a problem without exposing credentials to users.
Keep backups, recovery responsibilities, account deletion and retention requirements in the scope discussion. Do not assume they are included merely because an application has been deployed.
Seven questions to answer before requesting a quote.
- Who is the first user, and which task should the product help them complete?
- What inputs and outputs must the first release support?
- Which providers, integrations and accounts are already available?
- How many users and generations should the initial release support?
- What happens when a job fails or a user repeats a request?
- Which account, payment and administration features are essential?
- Who owns deployment, provider costs, backups and ongoing support?
Explore the Viral Clone project.
Our case study shows an AI content platform combining five tools, English and Chinese workflows, points based usage and a creation library. It offers a concrete example to discuss alongside your own requirements.
Turn your idea into a clear scope.
Share your core user journey and the integrations you need. We can discuss a focused first release and the decisions needed before estimating it.