Stop Building AI Systems That Break After Every Model Update

Why focusing on adaptability and modularity is the key to long-term AI success, no matter how fast technology evolves.

Here is the truth that a lot of companies are afraid to hear: most AI systems are designed to be tightly coupled to specific models.

That means a model update could cause the entire system to fall apart.

Take the release of GPT-5 for example. Immediately after its release, OpenAI deprecated several older APIs without warning. This sudden change caused many AI applications to break overnight.

I’ve talked to experienced developers that were even surprised by how the smallest shifts in model behavior disrupted prompt stacks, RAG pipelines, and response handling.

If you want to build for flexibility, this is what you need to know.

Why “Agnostic” Systems Fall Short

Swapping large language models (LLMs) is not like changing a light bulb. It’s not as easy as plugging in something new and expecting everything to work.