Tanner Stahl

Product | AI Engineering & Data Science

I write about what it takes to get predictive models and AI agents through review and into production, specifically in industries where mistakes are expensive and often take months to surface.

Most AI writing treats deployment as an afterthought: build the model, then figure out how to ship it. I write from the other direction. In healthcare and insurance, a mistake doesn't get caught in the next sprint. It surfaces in an audit, a regulatory filing, or a patient's chart, usually months after the decision that caused it. That changes what "working" means for a model, and it's the question underneath most of what I write here: what does it actually take to build an AI system when the cost of failure may not become visible until months after deployment.

I came to this question through machines before models. I started in bioengineering, then worked quality engineering on infusion pumps at ICU Medical, where a software defect is a patient safety event and gets treated as one: root cause analysis, CAPA, FDA reporting thresholds. I later co-founded a medical device startup, Crimson Medical Solutions, building an IV line management device through patent filing, non-dilutive funding, and hospital trials. Both jobs taught the same lesson from different angles: proving a claim to someone whose job is to doubt it, whether that's a hospital risk committee or an FDA reviewer, is a different skill than building the thing itself.

I now work as a product owner across a data science and AI engineering team at a large actuarial and risk-analytics consulting firm.

This site is where my learnings from the harder parts of that work get documented: model monitoring, agent architecture, evaluation, and the engineering work that happens between a successful prototype and an approved production system.

Views here are my own, and examples are drawn from public research, personal projects, and generalized experience unrelated to my employer.

Outside of work, I own and run CrossFit 801. I took it over with about 30 members as COVID was gutting the fitness industry; today it's approaching 150. I've also competed at the HYROX World Championships, and I coach members through the same program that got me there.

If you're doing this kind of work in insurance, healthcare, or anywhere else, I'd like to compare notes. Find me on LinkedIn.