How I cut AI calls by 95% without losing quality?

The Hidden Cost of Calling AI Too Early I stopped calling AI on every request — and everything got better. The Problem In one of my projects, I was generating AI-based insights from user activity. The initial design was simple: Every request for today’s insight → call the AI model → return a fresh response. GET /api/insights/today At first, this felt clean and correct. But in practice, it created serious problems: 429 rate limit errors within hours Daily quota exhausted before noon Random failur