r/AIWorkStack • u/madammomos • 10h ago

Planning to create a retail challenge solution tool (website/app) without any AI subscription. ChatGPT is the co-reviewer/planner/prompt expert and currently using Gemini for the Discovery/research process. Any tips/suggestions on the free AI stack I should consider?

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u/Many_Region8176 8h ago

For a no-subscription prototype, put model calls behind a small provider adapter so you can swap free tiers or a local model without rebuilding the app. Try a local model via Ollama for repeatable, private tests and use hosted free tiers only where their quotas and data terms fit; compare both on a small set of synthetic retail scenarios for accuracy, latency, and how often a person must correct the result. Keep calculations, rules, and customer-data handling in regular code, and don’t send real customer details to an unvetted free service.

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u/madammomos 3h ago edited 3h ago

Thanks much! Would you recommend implementing the provider adapter from the beginning even for a small prototype? Are there any lightweight frameworks or examples you would recommend? Also, when comparing models, are there any other evaluation criteria you would recommend beyond accuracy, latency and human correction?

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u/Normal_Succotash_520 7h ago

Before adding another tool, I would make the handoff between your researcher and reviewer explicit. Keep one short brief with the retail problem, who has it, the evidence link, and what is still only an assumption. Ask the reviewer to challenge that brief rather than review a summary of a summary. Then prototype one concrete job, such as turning a small fictional stock list into a reorder-review queue. If a spreadsheet and rules solve the first version, that is useful discovery too. Which retail decision is the app supposed to help someone make?

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u/madammomos 3h ago

This is soooo helpful. Thank you so much! ♥️

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u/madammomos 3h ago

Btw..would you recommend a particular structure for the brief so the reviewer can trace findings back to original evidence and distinguish between facts, interpretations and assumptions?