AI Engineering in 2025: The Gap Between Demos and Production | Sebastian Gutierrez
His observation about the current state of AI engineering caught my attention because it perfectly captures where we are in 2025:
“Building AI applications today feels a bit like web development in 2012 - the primitives are powerful, but frameworks and best practices are still emerging.”
We have incredibly powerful tools, but turning them into production-ready systems requires navigating an evolving landscape of patterns and practices.
The evolution of AI Agents follows a pattern similar to autonomous vehicles, progressing from basic automation to full autonomy.
Each stage builds upon the capabilities of the previous ones, creating a progression from basic interaction to full organizational autonomy.
Stages 4 and 5 remain largely aspirational but provide a roadmap for future development and serve as the ultimate goal of autonomous systems.
Given the range of AI capabilities, from basic chatbots to aspirational organizational systems, technical leaders face both immediate challenges and future opportunities:
