From Demos to Production: Why Structured Outputs Replace Free-Form Text in AI Systems

LLMs excel at generating fluent text, but unstructured outputs are unusable in production systems that need programmatic interfaces. This case study reveals three architectural patterns—typed schemas, source filtering, and human-in-the-loop verification—that apply universally to any system where AI output feeds into databases, workflows, or other services. The lesson: without structured outputs, you're building a prototype, not a system.