Web Design Business with Josh Hall

Where I stand on Ai in web design (in 2025)

• Josh Hall

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Josh here popping in with a special bonus episode on my thoughts on Ai for web designers. This was taken from a recent panel discussion about Ai on the Small Business Sweet Spot podcast.

For the full episode and to hear other opinions on the good and bad of Ai for small businesses in 2025, check it out at:

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ByyAcRHME1WiPNvrt0dqz?si=7c07b8e44dfe4673

Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fight-it-or-friend-it-ai-use-for-the-solopreneur-ep57/id1728291369?i=1000704431752

Blog Post https://compassdigitalstrategies.com/podcast/fight-it-or-friend-it-ai-use-for-the-solopreneur-ep57/

Big thanks to the sponsors for our upcoming Web Designer Pro CON 2025 event! We couldn't make such a top-notch event for my community without their support 🙏

17hats (for proposals, invoicing, contracts and automation)

SiteGround (for website hosting)

Termageddon (for auto-updating privacy po

Speaker 1:

Well, hello friend, it's Josh here popping in with another bonus episode here for you. In this one I wanted to share some thoughts on where I stand with AI, specifically AI and web design, and kind of how I'm using AI right now in my business. So I was invited to submit some thoughts on this as a part of a panel discussion with some other folks about AI on the Small Business Sweep Spot podcast. My friend Barb runs that show, so I'm going to link to that below if you would like to hear some other thoughts along with my full session on there. But for here, for right now, I just wanted to send you my snippet just with some of my thoughts on AI and where I stand with it today. So here you go, and again, below is the link to the full episode on the Small Business Sweet Spot podcast. Enjoy, friends. Ai Now, it's interesting because I'm somebody who is a late adopter to AI and definitely somebody who's more on the less impressed, more hesitant side of AI. That said, I think it would be foolish to not use AI in some capacity in your business. So what I'll do is just share quickly how I'm using AI right now as a community builder and for ideation and a few other ways and then maybe just share a couple of things in regards to the understandable apprehension for creatives. So let's actually start with that, because a lot of creatives artists, writers, designers feel like AI is going to take jobs and ruin basically. You know, take work, steal it, and whether they get paid themselves or just take jobs, whatever it may look like, that's the main apprehension that I've noticed and I felt in some way. But here's what I've realized and it's a cheesy quote, but I do believe it's very true, especially now. Ai is not going to take it. My audience is web designers, by the way, so I'll just frame this towards web designers, but just know it will work towards graphic designers, seoers, copywriters, any creative. But the quote is this and the idea is this AI will not take web designers' jobs. Web designers using AI will take web designers' jobs. So let me say that one more time AI will not take web designers jobs. Web designers using AI will take web designers jobs. Meaning the idea of AI is just to become more efficient and quicker and more productive. All the cheesy corporate terms you could think of is kind of true when it comes to AI.

Speaker 1:

Now, that said, I think AI itself and all of these different large language models and different tools, and even some of these like site builders, and I think they're a law, a decent bit far away from somebody saying, hey, build me a website and it being dang good. I think it's a good starting point with some of these AI builders, and I think the general public is getting a little more savvy to prompt although that's probably going to be. I think people using AI is going to be a much longer process, like the average people, than the AI capabilities we all know. Any tool and system could be top-notch, but it's about how you use it, so I think that's where we're actually the most safe as designers and creatives is good luck having your client figuring out what to use and where to go and how to prompt it correctly. But again, ai is a great starting point in the case of web design, at least for, like, starter sites or basic templates, but I've never seen an AI site kick something off. It's like, wow, that is incredible. Now I could.

Speaker 1:

The areas of AI that I think is really important to think about is actually anything that can be repeated, automated, or that is more of a junior, low-level type task when it comes to things like support, if you can use an AI agent, for example, for support, or if, for example, in my community, web Designer Pro, I use a platform called Circle and they actually natively came out with an AI agent, so I didn't need to find something, or it's one reason I love Circle they just built it in automatically. I was able to actually just literally, with a click of a button, turn on this AI agent. We called it Brock, I let my daughter name it, she named it Broccoli, and you can give it certain things to train it, and in my case it was just every aspect of my community and I filled it with some additional content as well. And now that little AI agent, brock, in my community is answering questions for members, both support, finding information and even doing coaching based off of my newsletters and my coaching that I've done inside of Web Designer Pro, and it is literally it has, and I've only I've been using it for less than a month and it's literally probably I would say maybe 10x, maybe 100x the amount of communication that I would have received, but it's already going back and forth because I can see the communication with members and it's basically I've replicated myself times 100 in less than a month with just this AI agent. So that's one good practical example of how I'm using it and how I'm understanding the value of it. The cool thing about Brock is we are using it just for Web Designer Pro material, so it's not scraping other websites or pulling from the internet. It's just my IP and my source material inside of Pro that people are getting access to. But instead of DMing me and waiting for a reply, members can always do that on the coaching level for me. But now all members get a chance to get indirect knowledge, basically like AI-driven knowledge, and some of the answers are exactly what I would recommend. So that's kind of how I'm using. It is for support, for time-saving, and those are the kinds of things when I stack myself up against other community builders I would ask are they doing something similar? Do they have a way to offer support that is, there's less friction to get your answer.

Speaker 1:

Whether you're finding something, whether you're looking for advice, whatever it is, there's definitely always the need for human element when, especially when it comes to strategy and bigger picture things and vision, especially something that hasn't been created yet, if you are thinking about a plan or thinking about something in detail. Now. Chat, gpt and other large language models can come up with ideas pretty good, but I think we're. I think humans are safe from the standpoint of either being human, just being authentic, being real, being you, putting your life experience into your stuff, into your marketing that's going to separate you from AI stuff immediately but also moving forward, like being a business partner. I don't know in short, as I'm talking my way through this, I don't know if AI at any time soon is going to be a business partner for business owners, but creatives do have that opportunity. And yeah, those are the thoughts. I really don't think it's going to take over completely now. It's something to continue to keep an eye on.

Speaker 1:

And I think the problem with AI as a whole is it's just moving so dang fast and there's so many options and there's so many tools. I think, just like websites, it's going to be more of like who do you trust to follow in this space? Who, what tools do you resonate with, what just feels good to you? And it's probably going to be a matter of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just like you could switch web design platforms every week. It's probably gonna be the same thing with AI models. You could use chat, gpt and Claude and few others and with website builders. Almost everyone has some sort of AI integration. Now, like I said, circle has the AI agents. It really is going to be a matter of what tools you trust and like to use and then what people you want to follow in the space. So I think that's going to be a challenge, but overall, I would say, absolutely don't, don't sleep on ai.

Speaker 1:

Basically and this is coming from somebody who was not an early adopter and who's skeptical and who I've had to begrudgingly start to use ai but I think what really, apart from some cool things that chat, gpt in itself has helped me with with ideas and just back and forth and ideation and a lot of times, as a course creator and community builder, I might have some ideas and I'm like forth and ideation, and a lot of times, as a course creator and community builder, I might have some ideas and I'm like I feel like I'm missing something. What am I missing? I've got like, you know, if I wanted to come up with like 10 steps to do something, and I've got eight and I ask for 10 steps, I'm like, oh duh, if it's SEO related yeah, I forgot about that. That is super beneficial for AI. But for me, brock, our AI agent and web designer pro, has just shown me the value of having AI in my business because it has magnified my reach without literally pulling time away from me and then, subsequently, my family. So it's a huge value add to web designer pro.

Speaker 1:

And a lot of members of my community are now saying like I had a chat with Brock and he had this to say. I was like, oh, that's amazing. It's amazing Like he's become kind of this new little member and pro. So, um, yeah, those are some of my thoughts on AI. I hope, I hope they help and if you're a designer, just remember that quote AI is not going to take design jobs. Designers using AI are going to take design jobs. So put that on your wall above your fireplace, wherever you need to be reminded of.