the demo gap is the most underrated problem in AI products right now

every AI product demos well. that's kind of the problem. demos are controlled — you pick the input, you know what comes out, you show the clean version. then real users show up with messy inputs and edge cases you never tested and the thing that looked like magic starts quietly falling apart. we went through this. first version of our product demoed great. actual usage was a different story. spent months not adding features but just making the core experience work for someone who doesn't already know which inputs produce good outputs. unglamorous work but it was honestly most of what we did early on. users have been burned enough times by AI that's confidently wrong that every new tool starts with negative goodwill. closing the demo gap is how you earn it back. the products that last aren't the ones with the best demos. they're the ones where the demo is the floor, not the ceiling. what's the biggest gap you've seen between how something demos and how it actually works in production?