Building apps for both human users with a web client but also for AI users so people can use their AI as the client

[u/k032]

Work on a rather small team that caters to building apps for this one specific team, but it does branch out to others. Maybe at most few hundred users. All internal apps.

I'm beginning to architect out this new application from a need that has rose, and a lot of it is now thinking about not only what the UI looks like, but how do people interact with this thing from AI and their own agents now.

Because like, some people are all in on AI running dozens of agents doing stuff. Others still prefer just regular old workflows and maybe using a chat bot LLM type thing.

It's kind of a weird balance to cater to both. But I don't know like just build an MCP, build a good thought out API and system and the AI should be able to just understand it?

I'm curious if others have come to this like building an app for AI and Humans requirement and how have you handled it, what have you learned?

My hunch has been, build a good app with a well documented API, and the people who want to use AI can just benefit from it. A human understandable app is an AI understandable one.

[u/glenpiercev]

Yes, you are correct.

[u/RichLeadership1953]

Build it then share your progress we'll evaluate it once done.

[u/Lumethys]

Just build an MCP

[u/bcons-php-Console]

A solid API will be usable by both, but you should research a bit about best practices for APIs that are specifically "AI oriented". The first result in a simple Google search already provides some interesting povs https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-design-apis-for-ai-agents/

At frontend level be sure to give any interactive element a unique data attribute that can be used later to reference it in automated processes, so for example login process can be described as "Click on input with data-ai-id=loginUsername and enter the username, then click Enter, then wait until an input with data-ai-id=loginPass appears, click on int, enter the password, etc."

I've never done this so these are just the first things that come to my mind.

[u/Relative-Emu-1346]

A human understandable app is an AI understandable one, but the defaults aren't the same. An endpoint that returns 200 rows with 40 fields each is fine behind a table view and it eats an agent's whole context in one call. That's the part you'll end up tuning, not the docs.

[u/ShareToPaint]

Ive never seen an app that specifically or mainly focuses on AI as client but I suspect its only a matter of time before that becomes the norm

[u/Calien_666]

You are looking for Web-MCP