Proof of Concept (POC)

It's a common step before adding a generative AI feature to an existing product: for example, spending a few days testing whether a language model can correctly extract information from a contract before deciding to invest in a full document-processing module. The POC serves as an internal decision tool, often shared with technical leadership or investors, to choose between technical approaches or get a rough estimate of cost and timeline.

The most common trap is turning a POC into a production product out of time pressure, keeping code that was never written with robustness, security, or error handling in mind. A POC that proved an idea feasible should, in principle, be rewritten, or at least seriously hardened, before going to production. It's also worth pinning down one precise question to answer before starting, otherwise the POC tends to drift into an open-ended mini-project.