Ship AI products with studio ownership
Plenty of agencies are built around long retainers. What you actually want is a live site, an app in the stores, and users adopting it.
Projects run on milestones rather than an open-ended discovery phase. Every phase ends with something you can click, test, or release.
If that sounds like your situation, Arcode is set up for founders searching for an AI product studio. Arcode is an AI product studio covering agents, MCP, RAG, and full-stack delivery for teams that need working software.
What you get
- AI-native product builds
- MCP and agent systems
- Web and mobile surfaces
- Launch-ready architecture
- One studio accountable for the result
- Design and engineering on the same schedule
- Support available after launch
How engagement works
As your AI product studio, we run a shared backlog, design reviews, and engineering sprints, and you keep one point of contact throughout.
- 01
Discover
Goals, constraints, data sources, and success metrics, all settled before we touch architecture or prompts. The work for teams in New York stays tied to the outcome you asked for.
- 02
Design
System design, AI/tool boundaries, interface direction, and interaction prototypes. You see progress on the critical path every week.
- 03
Build
Modern stack, clean architecture, evaluated AI behavior, and iterative demos you can react to. Nothing here waits on a handover between separate teams.
- 04
Launch
Ship, monitor, harden, and keep improving models, tools, and product after go-live. On AI product development projects we favour practical architecture over trendy defaults.
How we build it, and why
The stack is chosen per project, not applied from a template. For AI product studio work these are the defaults, and the reason each one is on the list.
- OpenAI
- a second model provider, so a single vendor's outage or price change is not your problem
- Claude
- long-context reasoning and reliable tool calling for agent work
- MCP
- the Model Context Protocol, so your tools plug into Claude, Cursor, and other agent clients without a custom adapter for each
- Next.js
- server rendering and static generation in one framework, so marketing pages stay fast and app routes stay dynamic
- NestJS
- structure and dependency injection on the backend, which keeps a growing API from turning into a pile of route handlers
- React Native
- one codebase for iOS and Android, which halves the surface area you maintain after launch
What the first weeks look like
- Week 1
Scope and architecture
Users, data, integrations, and constraints, ending in a written plan for the AI product development that you approve before anyone opens an editor.
- Weeks 2-3
Design the critical path
The screens that carry the product, prototyped and clickable. Design and engineering review together, so nothing gets drawn that cannot ship.
- Weeks 4-8
Build in weekly slices
Every week ends with something on a real URL. ai-native product builds lands early, because the rest of the plan depends on it working.
- Launch
Ship, measure, hand over
Release, monitoring, analytics, and a documented handover, so your team can carry it without calling us.
Weighing up your options
There are three realistic ways to get this built. Each is the right answer for someone.
A solo freelancer
Cheapest per hour and fine for a contained task. The risk on AI product development is breadth — one person covering design, backend, infrastructure, and launch usually means one of them is weak, and there is no cover when they are unavailable.
A local agency in New York
Same timezone and a face to meet, which genuinely matters for some teams. You are also paying New York companies hiring on portfolio proof and production AI. rates for the whole team including the layers that never touch your AI product development, and a local shortlist is a small shortlist.
Arcode
A small senior team. The people who scope the AI product development write the code, you get weekly demos instead of status decks, and the engagement ends when the thing is live and handed over.
Work we have shipped
Circlin Waitlist
Lead frontend · Next.js 15
Multilingual waitlist and referral product for a secondhand fashion brand, covering localization, analytics, and growth loops.
Waitlist experience with EN/DE localization, referral tiers, MDX blog, and analytics for Circlin.
- · EN/DE internationalization
- · Referral reward tiers
- · MDX blog and SEO content
- · Analytics and cookie consent
Next.js 15 · TypeScript · Tailwind · MDX · React 19
VIP Hires
Full-stack · Payments · UX
Recruitment platform with Stripe payments, workflow management, and polished motion-driven UI.
Hiring product covering job posting payments, candidate workflows, forms, and analytics.
- · Stripe payment flows
- · Recruitment workflow stages
- · Validated multi-step forms
- · Analytics charts and notifications
Next.js · Redux Toolkit · Stripe · Framer Motion · Zod
Note Assist
AI product · Next.js · Speech
AI meeting assistant with live speech-to-text, ChatGPT chat, and Firebase auth for transcription workflows.
Freelance AI product built with Next.js, Firebase, AssemblyAI, and ChatGPT for live meeting transcription and realtime chat around the transcript.
- · Live speech-to-text transcription
- · Realtime chat over meeting notes
- · Firebase authentication
- · AI-assisted follow-up on transcripts
Next.js · Firebase · AssemblyAI · ChatGPT · TypeScript
Working with teams in New York
New York companies hiring on portfolio proof and production AI. We work with clients in New York remotely and keep overlapping hours in EST/EDT. We usually collaborate in English.
How we work with New York teams
New York is on ET, so our afternoon covers your morning. In practice that means a scheduled daily window for anything that needs a conversation, and written updates waiting when you start.
What New York clients usually need
New York briefs cluster around fintech, media, and B2B SaaS. A lot of the work is replacing a prototype that got a company to revenue but cannot carry the next stage of growth.
Contracts, data, and compliance
Contracts are usually US contractor agreements with IP assignment and an NDA. Fintech projects get SOC 2 evidence and audit logging scoped into the build rather than retrofitted before a raise.
