Before You Add an AI Node
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Before You Add an AI Node
The question is: does this step require judgement, or does it require transformation?
Transformation — renaming fields, combining strings, filtering by a value, formatting a date, routing based on a known condition — doesn’t need AI. The Set node, the IF node, the Switch node, and the Code node all do this reliably, cheaply, and without latency. Adding AI to a step that could be a simple condition is slower, more expensive, and introduces a layer of unpredictability.
Judgement — understanding the intent behind a message, classifying something into a category that isn’t determined by a keyword, summarising a variable-length document, pulling structured data from unstructured text — is where AI earns its place.
Ask the question honestly before you wire in an AI node. If you can describe the rule precisely enough that you could write it as an IF condition, write the IF condition.