The Developer's Guide to AI

A practical, accessible guide that shows working software developers how to integrate real AI features into the applications they already build—using JavaScript, Python, APIs, and modern cloud services, without needing a data-science background. Most developers already know AI is powerful. What they don’t know is how to actually use it in their own codebase without becoming a data scientist. Too often, AI features stall out at brittle prototypes, half-baked search functions, or “smart” features that collapse the moment requirements change. That’s where this book comes in. We wrote this book with the everyday software developer in mind. The dev who works in a company and wants to grow their career by meeting the demands of the industry without losing time in the areas that might not be relevant to their current company or role. Written by seasoned developers Jacob Orshalick, Jerry M. Reghunadh, and Danny Thompson, this book teaches you how to integrate and customize large language models (LLMs) and other pre-trained AI models to solve real-world problems. Instead of drowning you in theory, this book gives you: Intelligent automation: Automate repetitive work by calling LLMs directly from your own applications and streaming intelligent responses to the UI. Practical Paths: Build production-ready AI features with tools you already know and some you don't. Clarity through the hype: Learn where AI actually makes sense in your applications (and where it doesn’t). Fewer dead-ends: Avoid wasted cycles by understanding limitations, costs, and trade-offs before you build. Competitive edge: Discover how AI can help you improve search, personalization, automation, and more.