AI on a budget: Getting the most for your project buck

I've noticed a trend in all the talk about AI lately. It essentially boils down to this: if you're going to do AI, go all in.

But in reality, that's often not the best approach for projects. There are often ways to include AI in a project without breaking your budget. And coincidentally, it's a new chorus of an old song with app development: sometimes doing everything isn't the best answer for your project.

In this edition, we'll cover how:

• App development isn't all-or-nothing –?and it's important to identify what's most important to build first.
• Using a minimum viable product (MVP) approach can be a great way to help your project make the most impact within your budget.

To start, I want to take a detour from apps and look at something else we see every day: a street intersection.

What's the best way to handle a bunch of cars?

Imagine you're building a new road in your town. At the end of the new section, it connects with an existing street. What do you do?

Well, if the tech people in the room had their way, the answer would often be pretty clear: put up a traffic light! With sensors! And hey, AI! (Yes, that's really a thing.) That's the best way to handle whatever happens at the intersection in a smart way, right?

Thing is –?have you noticed how expensive traffic light systems are? In most cases, installing the latest and greatest traffic control is a huge amount of overkill.

I tend to like starting from the other end: what's the simplest solution you could try first? And what would have the most amount of impact for the least cost?

You probably know the answer: a stop sign. It's easy, it's (relatively) inexpensive, and it'll probably do the trick for 75% of intersections.

If it turns out that's not enough, there are a bunch of other options:

• Install a traffic light that cycles through at a set amount of time.
• Install a light that has sensors to signal when the light should switch.
• Install the latest and greatest AI-powered super light.

You might notice, though, that in most cases, there's less and less of an impact on the actual traffic flow as you move up the list. Yes, you're moving closer to "perfect" –?but you're probably going to make a lot more of a difference going from nothing at all to a stop sign than from a timed light to a sensor light.

Finding the features that make the most impact

So how does AI fit into all of this?

For a lot of projects, there are ways to incorporate bits of AI that will make a big impact on how people use the app without breaking your budget or totally consuming your project.

But it actually extends beyond AI to all of the features of a project. Sitting down to plan the most important features to include at the start of your project can make a huge difference in how much you're able to accomplish within your budget.

In the app development world, we often call this a minimum viable product, or MVP. In our traffic example above, the MVP's likely the stop sign: it handles a lot of situations well, even if it might not be perfect for everything.

With an MVP, you'd start with a stop sign, and then you'd watch what happens that the intersection. Based on what you see (and maybe what you hear from a few frustrated drivers), you can focus on how to improve things for the next update. It's all about making sure you're focusing on the work that's most important.

(You can learn more about MVPs and the app development process in my free ebook, Decoding App Development: The Business Leader's Guide to Building an App.)

Make sure that prioritizing features is part of your planning for any new project. It can make a huge impact on both your user experience and your budget!