Most teams building AI apps take months to ship. Here's how BlackRock ships AI apps in days.
New fresh look needed to the way AI Apps are developed
Domain experts wait days for prompt iterations. Engineers can’t keep up. Deployment takes weeks.
The question isn’t “do we have the right AI model?”
It’s “do we have the right architecture?”
What I Discovered:
I studied how BlackRock reduced AI development from 8 months to days. What struck me wasn’t their tools or team size—it was their architectural philosophy.
Traditional approach:
- Modularize by business logic
- Build app per use case
- Engineering owns everything
BlackRock’s approach:
- Modularize by iteration speed
- Build platform once
- Domain experts own experimentation
The key insight: Optimize for who needs to iterate fastest, not how features are organized.
Their Platform Architecture:
Sandbox → Domain experts experiment
- Edit prompts directly (no engineering ticket)
- Test LLM strategies in minutes
- Run evals on document sets
App Factory → Auto-generates production apps
- Takes sandbox configurations
- Deploys via API automatically
Platform → Engineers build foundation once
- Data platform
- Governance and risk management
- Standardized API layer
The Transformation:
Development: 8 months → Days
Prompt iterations: Days → Minutes
Strategy testing: Weeks → Hours
Deployment: Weeks → Automated
Who iterates: Engineers → Domain experts
Startup Engineering Principles:
This isn’t specific to BlackRock. These principles work for any team—10 people or 10,000—operating in startup mode.
As a founder for 5 years, I learned this the hard way: In startup mode, everything is a hypothesis. Your architecture and process should enable rapid validation.
Why this matters for AI teams: Most things are still hypotheses. Shipping faster isn’t optional—it’s survival.
Where to Start:
Identify your slowest validation loop. Give domain experts direct access. Measure before/after. If you see 5-10x improvement, expand.
P.S: Thank you to infant vasanth and Vaibhavpage from BlackRock for sharing this at AI Engineer World’s fair 2025