OptimalARC · The Hard 70%
The Hard 70%. From OptimalARC.
The hard 70% of shipping a reliable agent is the architecture, not the demo.
AI Engineering
My Calendar Bot Was Supposed To Take One Evening
I thought I was building the simplest agent possible. Instead I found the exact gap between an AI demo and an AI product: state, memory, grounding, and intent. This is the build log.
Balagei G Nagarajan8 min read
AI Drift Detection: How to Catch Behavioral Drift Before Users Do
Balagei G Nagarajan7 min read
Edge Case Discovery: Finding the Production Scenarios Your Tests Miss
Balagei G Nagarajan7 min read
OptimalARC vs DataRobot, LangChain, and Arize: Production Reliability Compared
Balagei G Nagarajan9 min read
When should you not use an AI agent?
Balagei G Nagarajan5 min read
What 150 CXO Conversations Taught Me About the Patterns Under the Patterns
Balagei G Nagarajan8 min read
You can't fix an agent failure you can't see
Balagei G Nagarajan5 min read
The 7 Layers of AI Reliability: A Complete Framework
Balagei G Nagarajan12 min read
Pattern Discovery vs Model Training: Why Most AI Teams Start Wrong
Balagei G Nagarajan6 min read
Zero Data Exposure AI: Why On-Premise Matters for Enterprise
Balagei G Nagarajan7 min read
The Hard 70%: What 150+ CXO Interviews Taught Me About Why AI Teams Get Stuck
Balagei G Nagarajan5 min read
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How to architect AI agents that survive production — patterns, decisions, and the engineering that actually ships. No noise.
View on SubstackFrom the team building OptimalARC, the pre-build AI agent doctor.