How to Integrate Artificial Intelligence into Your App Effectively

Artificial intelligence has been the trend of the last decade when it comes to application development. Many new products boast the label “AI-powered.” But how is artificial intelligence actually used in an application? And is it always a good idea?

AI-powered apps: why build them

Why should an app make use of artificial intelligence? Any entrepreneur choosing to develop a product of this kind should first ask whether they are making this choice for the right reasons.

There are several good reasons to build an app with AI, but its main value is in automating repetitive tasks. For this reason, AI can be particularly useful for:

• Filling out long and complex forms
• Extracting scoring from questionnaires with open-ended questions
• Reading documents and extracting useful information
• Generating quotes or contracts

In general, AI is helpful whenever it simplifies the user’s task, perhaps helping them move from a long and tedious workflow to a single tap on a “confirm” button.

When AI is not the right choice

Let’s start with a premise: artificial intelligence is not a feature in itself. Integrating it just to follow the latest trend is counterproductive: besides the potentially high costs, no user will be impressed by AI alone unless it actually helps them.

Some of the cases in which AI isn’t truly necessary include:

• When the application ends up being just a wrapper (for example, around GPT): in this case, it makes little sense to build an entire app to perform a task already handled by widely available tools.
• When a non-essential AI feature is added to an app that hasn’t yet been validated: here, AI only slows down the validation phase.
• When AI could easily be replaced with simpler, cheaper alternatives, such as a tailored script.

In short, AI should only be integrated when it can genuinely improve the user’s life—and when it’s the only tool capable of doing so.

How we evaluate whether AI is right for your app

At Mabiloft we never suggest developing features we don’t believe are necessary, just because they’re trendy. To assess whether your app would benefit from AI-powered features, we follow this process:

• We analyze the product you want to build together with you.
• We identify any repetitive tasks that AI could handle on behalf of the user.
• We evaluate whether the impact-to-feasibility ratio is worthwhile: if costs outweigh benefits, we’ll be the first to tell you.
• We design a mobile or web application where AI is integrated seamlessly into the UX, invisible to the user.
• We develop combining different models to achieve the best possible result.

This way, you get an application in which AI is truly an added value—for you and for the end user. Do you want to tell us about your idea? Contact us with no obligation; we’ll set up a 30-minute call to find the right direction for your product.

How to use artificial intelligence properly in an app

But how is AI actually integrated into an application? A good product reveals itself already in the planning phase. AI should fade into the product—not feel like an add-on.

In the design process, AI must interact seamlessly with the platform’s components. There’s no need for multicolored tags announcing that the project uses artificial intelligence.

From a technical standpoint, it’s also important to know the different AI paradigms and understand which tool to use in each case (or in combination) to achieve the desired result.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these aspects.

Designing AI-powered apps: real use cases

How should an application with artificial intelligence be designed? The first step is identifying the tasks that can be effectively handled by AI—in other words, those that require:

• Detecting patterns (linguistic or visual)
• Categorizing based on predefined schemes
• Predicting outcomes based on data

Some case studies we’ve worked on at Mabiloft include:

Through these integrations, we’ve achieved simplified flows, error-free interactions, significant time savings for the end user, and higher business conversion rates.

Of course, these are just a few of the countless possibilities AI offers. Do you have a completely different idea you’d like to share?

A UX designed for AI

Many applications flaunt their use of artificial intelligence on the homepage like a trophy. At Mabiloft we take a completely different approach: AI is not the goal—it’s a means. This is why we prefer that users think, “This is so convenient!”, without even realizing they’re using AI.

For this reason, during the design phase, AI becomes invisible—so well integrated that it blends with the platform’s components, following the principle of calm design: systems that simplify complexity through smooth, seemingly automatic processes.

Rather than drawing attention to the tool, the UX should hide it, allowing the user to interact as little as possible for maximum results. For example, the app may ask the user to confirm an inference made by the AI, but always implicitly, without highlighting the underlying technology.

Choosing the right AI technology for each situation

There are a variety of tools that can be used in different scenarios, depending on the desired outcome. Here are the ones we’ve experimented with and how they work:

If this topic interests you and you want to learn more, keep following our blog—we’ll soon dive deeper into the technical aspects of artificial intelligence.

In the meantime, if you have an idea you’d like to develop and want to explore the AI approach, why not try our Sprint Check? Sprint Check is an innovative path created at Mabiloft for new entrepreneurs. We help startups and SMEs launch their products by offering a free product validation. Don’t miss this opportunity!