I've Used AI to Build Production Software Since 2022. Here's What Actually Works.

Everyone's talking about AI coding. Most of the conversation is theoretical. I've been shipping production software with AI assistance since 2022 — when ChatGPT was brand new, and when this was genuinely weird. In that time, I've built many products, including (most recently) security APIs processing real transactions, marketing automation systems, and a 360-degree agent security toolkit. Along the way, I've learned that the practices matter more than the model. Here's what actually works. The 66% Problem Stack Overflow's 2025 survey found that 66% of developers spend more time fixing "almost-right" AI-generated code than they would have spent writing it themselves. I've seen what happens when developers skip the discipline. But I learned early to avoid that trap. In late 2022 into 2024, I wasn't letting AI write directly into my codebase. I'd generate code for specific problems, cut and paste it in myself, study how it worked, and test relentlessly — at the file level, unit level, and