eComFuel Podcast Building an AI Brain: Lessons from a Failed Attempt and How We're Building v2.0
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Sep 12, 2025 Patrick Ryan, Director of Ops at ECF, shares insights from his journey in developing an AI bot for the community. He reflects on the lessons learned from a previous failed attempt and discusses the advancements in AI technology that informed the new project. Topics include the ethical implications of AI, the importance of human connection in tech, and practical applications enhancing member support and forum interactions. Patrick also highlights the challenges of recruiting skilled AI talent and the balance needed between automation and personal engagement.
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Prefer Integrated Cloud Stacks
- Use integrated cloud ecosystems (they chose Google Cloud/Gemini) to avoid stitching many tools together.
- Centralized platforms simplify billing, dev work, and data syncing.
Why Vector Databases Matter
- Vector databases store embeddings (numerical text chunks) while SQL stores structured records; LLMs query vectors for semantic matches.
- This hybrid approach lets AI find nuanced forum conversations that SQL search misses.
Context Window Is No Longer The Same Limit
- Larger context windows (Google offering ~1M tokens) let models handle much bigger, complex queries than earlier LLMs.
- Bigger context size materially improved what their system can do now versus two years ago.