Let’s start with reputation risk. What happens when your AI bot goes off-script and starts handing out unsolicited advice? Maybe it recommends a competitor. Maybe it promises a discount or refund it has no authority to offer. Sure, you may not be legally bound by a bot's rogue promises, but good luck explaining that to an angry customer. Has anyone actually tried to break your bot? Simulated a malicious user? Do you have any systems in place to detect and stop nonsense before it reaches the end user?
Next, availability. AI vendors often block questionable inputs. But some also throttle or even suspend API access if you hit too many flagged queries. So, can someone just spam your bot with shady questions until it collapses?
Then there's cost. Many AI services bill per request. Maybe you've assumed users won’t spam because each interaction costs just a few cents. But a single user hammering your system with thousands of queries per minute could rack up thousands of dollars in charges daily.
But we have limits set on our API account! Great. Until the platform doesn't enforce them in real-time. I've personally gone well past my limits during large operations because billing delays left the door wide open. And yes, the invoice still showed up.
Bottom line: Protect your AI chat. Test it like you're trying to break it. Intercept harmful inputs and outputs. Set user and IP-level controls. Add API-level spending limits but don’t stop there. Build total daily, weekly, and monthly caps into your system too.
