I'll keep this one practical. If you're shopping for agentic AI software development services in 2026 and you've already read a dozen agency pages that say more or less the same thing, this is the version that tells you what each phase actually looks like, what you get at the end of each, and what the bill comes to.
I run Shape. We build AI products agent-first — for our own portfolio (Wondercut, ProductAI, MomentClip) and for funded clients. This is the same delivery framework on both. There is no special "client process" that's different from how we ship our own products.
Agentic AI software development services in one sentence
Engineering work where the daily unit is "delegate to an agent, verify the result, ship." Specs replace tickets. Evals replace status meetings. Senior engineers supervise, not type. The output is software that ships 4–6x faster than a traditional dev shop and is easier to maintain because every feature ships with the eval that proves it works.
If you want the technical deep-dive, read how my team actually ships code in 2026 — that piece is for engineers. This piece is for buyers.
The four phases — what we ship at each
Every agentic AI software development engagement at Shape runs through these four phases. The phase boundaries are concrete: each one has a written deliverable that lands in your repo.
| Phase | What goes in | What lands in your repo | Typical timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Discovery | Founder call, customer notes, any existing Figma/PRD | A written 1–3 page spec in Markdown | 2–3 days |
| 2. Build | The spec + the eval cases from phase 3 | Working app, PRs daily, each with agent plan + verifier output | 4–5 weeks (MVP scale) |
| 3. Verification | Edge cases, failure modes, real user inputs | Eval suite, 0.5–2x the size of feature code | Continuous, starts week 1 |
| 4. Ship | Production env, observability, on-call structure | Deployed app, instrumentation, handoff doc | Final week of engagement |
Two things to notice. First, discovery is the shortest phase, not the longest. We don't run 4-week discovery engagements because a 200-word spec to an agent is worth more than 20 hours of stakeholder interviews. Second, verification runs in parallel with build, not after it. Evals are written alongside features, often before. That's the whole game.
What's included — and what isn't
Every agentic AI software development services engagement at Shape includes the same baseline:
- A written spec. Plain Markdown in the repo. Versioned. Re-readable by you, by us, and by the agents that build from it.
- A working app. Deployed end of week 1 with auth and one core flow. Not a Figma file, not a Notion doc — a real URL.
- An eval suite. Grows with the features. Ratio target: 0.5–2x evals-to-feature-code, depending on how much AI is in the surface.
- A handoff doc. Written by an agent, reviewed by us. Structured so the engineer you hire after us can read it cold and ship the next feature.
- Code ownership. Yours, day one. Private repo on your GitHub org.
- Senior engineers only. Two to four people, all senior, no offshore staff augmentation.
What's not included: a 60-page discovery document, a separate "design phase," a project manager who fronts a rotating offshore team, weekly slide decks, scope creep dressed up as "agile flexibility." If those things matter to your procurement team, we're probably not the right fit.
The stack we use today
The tooling moves every quarter. The discipline doesn't. Today (May 2026), the stack is:
- Primary agent: Claude Code in the terminal.
- Inline edits: Cursor when a senior wants to see every diff before it lands.
- Evals: Custom Python harness over JSON test banks.
- Orchestration: n8n for human-in-the-loop, cron + Lambda for background.
- Context: Per-repo CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, /skills directory, versioned in git.
- Review gates: tests + lint + a representative eval pass + human approval before any prod push.
The full breakdown is in the engineering view. Buyers don't need to know how Cursor's plan mode works. Buyers need to know that the team running their build is using the right tools on day one and has been doing it for two years.
Engagement sizes
Three options, picked by where you're at:
- Fixed-Scope MVP — 6 weeks, from $48K. One core flow, deployed, evaluated, instrumented, handed off. Default for funded founders shipping v1. See the full MVP services breakdown.
- Dedicated Pod — 3–12 months, $35–60K/month. Two to four senior engineers + a designer if it's an AI product. For post-MVP teams scaling, or corp ventures building in parallel to an internal team.
- Build-for-Equity — 6–18 months, equity-only or hybrid. Reserved for founders we know in spaces Shape wants to take a position. Not pitched on first call.
If you're an enterprise innovation team weighing this against McKinsey Digital or Accenture Song, the right frame is in how to pick an AI development partner.
Who this is for
Our best-fit clients have three things in common:
- Funding to ship. Either seed/Series A/B venture funding, or corporate budget already allocated. We don't do pre-revenue founder side projects.
- An AI surface area that matters. Not "we'll add ChatGPT to the onboarding." Real AI in the product — image gen, agents, RAG over your data, LLM-driven workflows.
- Speed pressure. A demo deadline, a board commitment, a competitive window. Speed is where agentic delivery lapped traditional dev shops; if you don't need speed, you don't need us.
Who this is not for
- Pre-validation founders — go talk to customers first.
- Static marketing sites or low-AI CRUD apps — a good Webflow team is cheaper.
- Teams where the CTO needs to review every line of code by hand — they need a contractor, not an agentic partner.
- Procurement-heavy enterprises that won't sign without a 14-week SOW process. We can do paperwork but the speed advantage erodes.
How it actually starts
Most agencies open with a "discovery call" that's really a sales call. Ours opens with a 30-minute working session: you describe the product, we ask the questions that will actually shape the spec, and at the end you have a one-page outline of what week 1 would look like. If you want to engage, we send a one-page SOW the same day. If you don't, you keep the outline.
Book a 30-minute call — straight on my calendar. No deck.
Read next
Pick based on where you're at:
- Choosing between vendors: the five tests that separate real from rebrand
- Sister page on the same offer: what real agentic AI delivery looks like
- Specifically need an MVP: our six-week MVP service
- Enterprise / corp venture buyer: picking an AI development partner
Read next: Agentic software development: how my team actually ships code in 2026 — the engineering view of the same delivery model.
Written by Marko Balažic, founder of Shape — an AI venture studio shipping AI-powered products agent-first. Reach out if you want to talk shop.
%202.png)
.svg){kind=logo}
