What Can I Start in AI in .NET?

Start with one bounded workflow

The point of the .NET guidance is that you can keep the AI piece small and let the rest of the app stay normal. I did not let provider-specific code leak into every controller or UI layer.

Summarize incident or support notes.
Draft response text from structured inputs.
Extract action items from meeting notes.
Classify documents or emails into buckets.

Search internal knowledge with a chat front end.
Assist developers with local code explanations.
Generate release-note drafts from changes.
Build a narrow internal copilot for one team.

Good first project shape

How to think about the first implementation

Pick one repetitive problem with a clear before/after outcome.
Keep the AI behind a single .NET service class.
Return structured data back to the app or API.
Add guardrails for privacy and cost before scaling it out.

// The shape should stay small and predictable
public record SummaryResult(string Summary, string[] ActionItems);

public interface IAssistantService
{
    Task<SummaryResult> SummarizeAsync(string text);
}

The first app I built

The simplest thing I built first was a single endpoint that accepted notes, called one AI service, and returned a short summary plus action items. That was enough to prove the pattern before adding any UI complexity.

public sealed record SummaryRequest(string Notes);
public sealed record SummaryResponse(string Summary, string[] ActionItems);

app.MapPost("/api/ai/summarize", async (
    SummaryRequest request,
    IAssistantService assistant,
    CancellationToken token) =>
{
    if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(request.Notes))
        return Results.BadRequest("Notes are required.");

    var result = await assistant.SummarizeAsync(request.Notes);
    return Results.Ok(new SummaryResponse(result.Summary, result.ActionItems));
});

public sealed class AssistantService : IAssistantService
{
    public Task<SummaryResult> SummarizeAsync(string text)
    {
        // Replace this with your model call later.
        var summary = text.Length > 140 ? text[..140] + "..." : text;
        var actions = new[]
        {
            "Review the summary for accuracy",
            "Extract any follow-up tasks",
            "Store the result for the user"
        };

        return Task.FromResult(new SummaryResult(summary, actions));
    }
}

Practical starter ideas

Summarize incident logs for support teams.
Turn a release-note diff into a customer-facing summary.
Extract action items from meeting transcripts.
Draft support responses from known templates and ticket context.
Build a document Q&A helper for internal knowledge.

What not to do first

Do not start with a full company-wide AI platform.
Do not expose raw prompts and outputs without policy checks.
Do not let AI code path bypass logging, retries, or limits.
Do not mix provider code directly into controllers or UI pages.

Why .NET is a good fit

.NET already gives you dependency injection, configuration, background services, web APIs, and solid tooling. That makes it easy to keep the AI behind a small service and leave the rest of the app familiar.