Building Agentic AI Applications with a Problem-First Approach: A Practical Guide for 2026

Hi, I’m Felicia Philip. I help startups and small businesses build professional, high-converting websites that turn visitors into paying customers. I specialize in creating websites that not only look great but are optimized to showcase products, capture leads, and grow businesses.
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This is exactly the approach I've been taking with my AI secretary project. Started with a simple pain point: I kept forgetting to follow up on things. Instead of building a full "AI assistant," I just built a reminder system that interviewed me about what I needed to remember.

The "agentic" part came later, organically. Once the system understood my workflows, adding autonomous actions was just connecting APIs.

The "buy vs build" section hit home — I've probably wasted months trying to self-host LLMs when hosted APIs would have gotten me to market 3x faster. The cost savings weren't worth the time delay.

One thing I'd add: the "problem-first" approach also means saying no to cool tech. I keep a "someday maybe" list for features that are technically interesting but don't solve immediate user problems. That list is surprisingly long.

Great practical guide — bookmarked for my team.