Four years ago, I wrote an article asking whether AI-generated content might solve a major pain point in web development and digital marketing, and a few months later, I concluded that it did. At the time, I was thinking primarily about blog writing, SEO pages, social media content, email campaigns, and the growing pressure businesses face to constantly publish online.
Looking back now, I can confidently say this:
I was right.
AI-generated content absolutely became a massive part of modern websites, marketing, search, and social media. It changed the speed at which businesses could publish online. It changed how agencies operate. It changed expectations around content creation entirely.
But I also realize now that I was only seeing one small piece of a much larger shift.
The real transformation wasn’t just content.
It was the act of building itself.
Looking Back at My Original Thoughts
When I reread my earlier article recently, one line stood out to me:
“While all of these uses are exciting, the one that excites me the most is AI-written content.”
That statement was completely true at the time.
Back then, I could already see how AI would reshape blogging, SEO, social media, email marketing, and online publishing. And it absolutely did. AI-generated content became a massive part of the modern web almost overnight.
But looking back now, I realize something important:
Even though I mentioned AI-assisted development in that article, I still had no idea how capable these tools would eventually become.
I did not yet understand that AI wouldn’t just help create content — it would dramatically change the speed at which ideas themselves could become real.
That is what excites me now.
The Cost of Experimentation Has Collapsed
For most of my career, bringing an idea to life online required significant time, money, planning, and technical resources. Even small projects could turn into months of work. You either needed to know how to code everything yourself, hire developers, or simply abandon ideas that felt too ambitious to realistically pursue.
That friction shaped the internet for decades.
Today, that friction is disappearing.
Tools like ChatGPT and Claude Code have dramatically changed what is possible for small teams, solo creators, and experienced web professionals. Not because they magically “do all the work,” but because they reduce the distance between an idea and a working prototype.
That is a much bigger shift than AI writing a blog post.
I can now sketch out workflows, prototype systems, test ideas, build dashboards, rethink user experiences, and iterate rapidly in ways that simply were not practical before. Projects that once lived as notebooks full of scattered thoughts can suddenly become real working systems.
And for someone like me — someone with decades of experience in SEO, web development, UX, local search, content strategy, and operational problem-solving — that changes everything.
The Excitement Is Back
For the first time in years, I feel the same kind of excitement I felt during the major shifts that shaped my entire career on the web.
I was excited in the late 90s, learning HTML for the first time. Suddenly, anyone could publish online.
I was excited in the early 2000s, discovering SEO and realizing websites could actually be found.
I was excited learning SQL and programming languages because websites were becoming interactive systems instead of static pages.
I was incredibly excited by mobile websites and even more excited by responsive design because the web was adapting to people in entirely new ways.
I was fascinated by QR codes because they blurred the line between physical and digital experiences.
But after a while, much of the industry began to feel more iterative than revolutionary to me.
Then AI happened.
And now, for the first time in a very long time, it feels like the ground is shifting again.
Yesterday, I half-jokingly posted this on social media:
“I don’t want to sound like every other weirdo coder in the world but OMG Claude Code is blowing my mind. In about a week, I almost finished all of the ‘$1 million dollar ideas’ I have had over the past 25 years. I guess it’s time to find out if any of them actually are worth $1M …”
Honestly, that post captures exactly how this moment feels to me.
The most exciting part is not that AI can generate content or automate repetitive tasks.
It’s that the cost of experimentation has collapsed.
Ideas that once would have required months of development, planning, hiring, or technical roadblocks can now be explored rapidly. Instead of spending years wondering whether something is worth building, I can prototype it, interact with it, refine it, and actually test it in the real world.
That changes everything.
Experience Still Matters
There is a strange narrative online right now that AI replaces experience. In my own work, I have found almost the opposite to be true.
AI is incredibly powerful in the hands of people who already understand:
- workflows
- user behavior
- SEO
- communication
- discoverability
- operations
- business needs
- and real-world friction points
The tools accelerate the process, but they still need direction.
They still need taste.
They still need structure.
They still need human judgment.
Over the last few years, I have found myself thinking less like a traditional web designer and more like a systems builder. Websites are still important, but increasingly they are only one piece of a larger ecosystem that includes workflows, dashboards, automation, discoverability, AI-assisted systems, and lightweight MVPs.
That shift has been both exciting and surprisingly energizing.
AI Content Changed Marketing — But AI-Assisted Development Changed Momentum
The original conversation around AI focused heavily on content generation. And to be fair, that alone changed digital marketing forever. Businesses can now create blog posts, newsletters, social media content, product descriptions, and SEO pages at a scale that would have been impossible for many small teams only a few years ago.
But the bigger shift is momentum.
Ideas no longer sit dormant for months waiting for the perfect time, perfect budget, or perfect technical team.
They can be explored immediately.
A rough concept can become a functioning prototype in days instead of months. Workflows can be tested quickly. UX ideas can evolve in real time. Small experiments become possible again.
That ability to rapidly experiment may end up being one of the most important changes AI brings to the web.
Where I Am Now
When I took Websketching back over several years ago, I wrote openly about trying to “find my MVP.” At the time, I was still searching for direction after a major life transition. I knew the internet was changing rapidly, but I did not yet understand what role I wanted to play in that change.
Today, things feel clearer.
I am increasingly interested in:
- AI-assisted MVPs
- workflow systems
- discoverability
- UX-driven operational tools
- AI optimization (AIO)
- practical digital systems
- and helping ideas become tangible
Ironically, the thing that excites me most right now is not replacing people with AI.
It is seeing more people become capable of building.
It is the knowledge that I can turn what once may have been a pie-in-the-sky idea into reality … in a matter of days.
Not everyone needs a massive development team to explore an idea anymore. Not every project needs months of planning before it can exist.
The barrier between imagination and execution is becoming smaller.
And honestly, after spending decades building on the web, that feels like one of the most exciting shifts I have ever witnessed.
In my opinion, this may be the most exciting time in the history of web development.
Not because AI replaces creativity — but because it accelerates it.