Custom AI Development
Custom AI development is the design and engineering of AI systems such as LLM applications, autonomous agents, and ML pipelines, built specifically for a company's data, workflows, and constraints rather than adapted from off-the-shelf tools. Steinn Labs builds custom AI products for startups and regulated enterprises, from architecture through deployment, with delivery teams in Dubai and Pune.
We are one of the few AI development companies purpose-built for regulated industries. Every system we ship is auditable, self-hostable, and validated the way we validate our own compliance product, Magpie.
Discovery & Feasibility Scoping
Problem framing, data readiness assessment, and a clear go or no-go recommendation before a line of production code is written.
System Architecture & Model Selection
The right blend of foundation models, fine-tuning, retrieval, and traditional ML for your workload, cost profile, and data residency needs.
LLM & Agent Development
Applications, copilots, and autonomous agents built with the frameworks that fit the job. Reliable behavior, tight prompts, tool use, and structured outputs.
Data Pipeline & Integration Engineering
Ingestion, cleaning, embeddings, vector stores, and connectors into the systems your team already uses. The plumbing that makes the AI actually work.
Evaluation, Testing & Guardrails
Offline eval suites, adversarial testing, red-teaming, and production guardrails so behavior stays in scope after launch.
Deployment & Handover
Ship to your cloud, your on-prem environment, or a sovereign region. Full documentation, runbooks, and optional ongoing management.
Discovery & Problem Definition
We sit with your team, map the workflow, define success metrics, and identify where AI moves the needle versus where it doesn't.
Architecture & Feasibility
System design, model selection, cost modeling, and a technical prototype that de-risks the hard parts before full build.
Build
Two-week sprints with working demos at every checkpoint. You see progress, not slide decks. Direct access to the engineers writing the code.
Evaluation & Validation
A dedicated gate. Offline evals, adversarial testing, safety checks, and compliance mapping before anything touches production traffic.
Deployment
Ship to your infrastructure with monitoring, logging, and rollback in place. Zero surprises on launch day.
Support & Iteration
Post-launch tuning, model refreshes, and roadmap iteration. Handover to your team or an ongoing retainer, your call.
We are model-agnostic and infrastructure-agnostic. Everything below is in production somewhere in our portfolio. If you need self-hosted models, air-gapped deployment, or data residency in a specific jurisdiction, we build for that from day one instead of retrofitting later.
Models & Providers
- OpenAI (GPT-4, o-series)
- Anthropic Claude
- Google Gemini
- Meta Llama
- Mistral
- Open-weight fine-tunes
Agent & Orchestration
- LangGraph
- LlamaIndex
- OpenAI Agents SDK
- CrewAI
- Custom orchestration
Retrieval & Data
- Postgres + pgvector
- Pinecone
- Weaviate
- Qdrant
- Elasticsearch
Infra & Deployment
- AWS
- Google Cloud
- Azure
- On-prem Kubernetes
- Sovereign regions (UAE, KSA, EU)
Languages
- Python
- TypeScript
- Go
- Rust for hot paths
Evaluation & Observability
- Braintrust
- LangSmith
- Custom eval harnesses
- Magpie for red-teaming
AI risk and red-teaming platform
Built the automated adversarial testing engine that now audits LLM applications across finance and healthcare deployments.
Read full case study →Arabic-first conversational AI
Domain-tuned LLM stack for a regional customer experience platform, deployed in a UAE sovereign region.
Read full case study →Procurement intelligence agents
Multi-agent system that reads RFPs, drafts responses, and flags commercial risk. Cut proposal turnaround from days to hours.
Read full case study →Financial Services
Credit risk, AML, advisor copilots, and compliance automation.
Healthcare
Clinical documentation, literature synthesis, and privacy-safe patient tooling.
Banking
KYC, transaction intelligence, and internal knowledge copilots for regulated teams.
Insurance
Claims triage, underwriting assistants, and document intelligence at scale.
Fixed-Scope Project
Defined outcome, defined price, defined timeline. Best for well-scoped builds where you know what you want and need it shipped.
Engagements typically start at USD 40,000
Embedded Team
Our engineers join your team for a set period. You keep velocity and knowledge in-house while we bring the AI depth.
Monthly retainer, minimum 3 months
See team augmentation →Iteration Retainer
Ongoing capacity for tuning, evals, new features, and model refreshes after your custom system is live.
Monthly retainer, flexible scope
What is custom AI development?
Custom AI development is the design and engineering of AI systems built for a specific company's data, workflows, and constraints. It covers LLM applications, autonomous agents, retrieval systems, and traditional ML pipelines, delivered as software you own rather than a subscription to a generic tool.
How long does custom AI development take?
A production-ready first release typically ships in 8 to 16 weeks. Discovery and architecture take 2 to 3 weeks, build runs 6 to 12 weeks in two-week sprints, and validation plus deployment adds another 2 to 3 weeks. Larger multi-agent or fine-tuned systems can extend beyond that.
How much does custom AI development cost?
Fixed-scope engagements at Steinn Labs typically start at USD 40,000 for a focused prototype-to-production build. Full custom platforms with fine-tuning, multi-agent orchestration, and regulated deployment usually range from USD 80,000 to USD 300,000 depending on scope, data complexity, and infrastructure requirements.
What is the difference between custom AI development and using tools like ChatGPT?
Off-the-shelf tools give you a generic assistant that anyone can use. Custom AI development gives you a system trained or configured on your data, integrated into your workflows, deployed on your infrastructure, and governed by your compliance requirements. You own the behavior, the outputs, and the roadmap.
Do you build AI for regulated industries?
Yes. Regulated industries are our core focus. We deliver for financial services, healthcare, banking, and insurance clients with the audit trails, evaluation gates, and data residency controls those environments require. Our compliance product Magpie exists because we build for these buyers every week.
Can custom AI systems be self-hosted or kept on-premise?
Yes. We deploy on your cloud, on-prem Kubernetes, or in sovereign regions across the UAE, KSA, and EU. When needed we work with open-weight models so nothing calls out to a third-party API and your data never leaves your environment.
AI Powered Product Engineering
Ship AI-native products in 4 to 6 week cycles with Claude Certified Architects.
Read →AI Agents Development
Design orchestrated agent systems that actually get work done in production.
Read →Team Augment
Vetted AI engineers embedded into your team, replaceable in two weeks.
Read →Insights
Field notes on shipping AI in regulated environments.
Read →Book a technical discovery call.
30 minutes with an engineer, not a salesperson. We will pressure-test the idea, sketch a realistic architecture, and tell you what a first build would actually cost.