I’m Devin Hunter, the founder of White Mountain Codeworks, and I use AI every day in my work.

Its good for brainstorming, does repetitive tasks for me that I don't want to do, and helps me resolve bugs and issues more quickly than I could otherwise. But having a lot of experience using AI to help launch websites I feel that I can confidently tell you this:

AI is an awesome tool, but despite what AI influencers and tech CEOs like Sam Altman may want you to believe, human expertise is still totally essential in web development.

Let me tell you why!

This is Where AI Fails at my Job and Needs Human Oversight

1. Brand Storytelling - AI can't have a conversation with a founder/client about their brand identity and use their experience to create a color/font palette/design palette that creates a unique and distinctive brand/image online. That requires human understanding and creativity.

2. Project Integration - So you need a website with a frontend, a backend, a database, secure login, payment processing, and a blog? AI might be able to create code soup that gets some of the individual pieces working together, but it can't tie those things together into a fully working product. You need someone who know what they're doing for that.

3. Ethical and Legal Oversight - ADA compliance, data privacy laws, and industry-specific regulations need human oversight. Trusting AI with those things is a very risky gamble.

4. Creative Differentiation - AI is generative but it isn't creative, and it will produce something similar to whatever information soup it learned from. If you want unique web design you need human creativity.

5. SEO optimization - AI is alright at stuffing a page with keywords and helping to plan, but you need human oversite for actual SEO success because there is just so much that goes into it. You need proper technical configuration, keyword strategy, site architecture, structured data, backlink outreach, and content marketing over time. That's a lot of moving parts to juggle and keep track of. You need a human for that.

This is Where AI Comes in Most Handy in my Workday

1. Web Design Wireframes - Making wireframes is one of the things that I dislike most about my work. It is long and boring and takes a lot of trial and error. AI can't do it for me (Google Stitch and Claude Design are still not at a level where they can replace designers despite their marketing), but it sure helps me with drafting and makes the process less painful.

2. Copywrite Brainstorming - AI tools help me to organize my jumbled thoughts into paragraphs when writing copy for websites (which I then refine) and also helps me draft content for headlines, web pages, or blog posts before I tweak and polish the final versions.

3. Saves Time When Coding - I use AI to write tedious code that would take up a lot of my time without requiring me to really think about it, like rearranging rows and columns on a web pages for mobile responsiveness or resizing images. Its all contextual. When it comes to more complex logic I like to do that myself. I've had AI hallucinate and screw up important functionality too many times to fully trust it with anything really important.

4. Bug Troubleshooting - AI helps me to interpret/troubleshoot obscure bugs I'd otherwise spend far too much time digging through Stack Overflow or GitHub issues looking for solutions like I used to in the past.

5. Client Meeting Prep - Before a discovery call I like to use AI to help me draft a consultation script that covers most of my bases. Is helps to ensure I ask the most important questions and keeps the meeting focused because sometimes my brain is mush.

6. Proposal Drafting - NO ONE likes formatting proposals. I ask AI to provide me with a proposal skeleton so I don't spend time staring at a blank page wondering where to start.

Here's an Example of Why AI is Not Going to Replace Me Anytime Soon

One of my company's clients (Valence Intelligence Systems) needed a fully functional investor-relations website delivered on a tight deadline ahead of a trade show.

Some things AI contributed that relieved pressure:

• Helped to brainstorm ideas for the typefaces used in the final site design.
• Helped to quickly find competitors to get inspiration from when designing.
• Was a good sounding board for ideas on page structure.
• Generated rough copy for headlines and core sections, which we later refined with the help of the client.
• Wrote repetitive front-end code, such as reusable components and basic layout scaffolding that was then human-corrected.

What humans brought to the project that AI couldn't replace:

• Custom visual design layout tailored to the startup’s brand.
• Logo revamping and full brand styling, including a custom color palette.
• Image sourcing and optimization, making sure all assets were sized, compressed, and properly integrated into the site for best performance.
• SEO best practices like semantic html baked into every page from day one to support search visibility (AI screws this up a lot of the time and needs to be fixed).
• Scalable architecture, ensuring the site would grow with the company. AI is TERRIBLE at architecture and will create as much spaghetti code as you let it.
• All of the behind-the-scenes setup that needs to happen for the site to work such as connecting the domain name, hosting provider, analytics tracking, contact forms, email routing, etc.

So you can see from this example that while AI definitely has its advantages when developing and designing a site and is a great tool, human skills are still needed or there simply is no website.

Grand Conclusion

AI can only get you to a certain point. It can suggest things. It can automate things. Its definitely even impressed me at times. But it can’t replace the experience, strategy, and creative decision-making that go into building a website, especially a good one.

So if you’re a business owner or founder who wants a high-performance website that reflects your brand and grows with your business, you need more than ChatGPT. You need a partner who knows how to use the tools and when to set them down.

Want to see what that looks like in action? Let’s talk!