Worried using AI means a generic website? Plainvert Digital's founder explains why AI handles the busywork, not the decisions that make your site yours.
By the founder of Plainvert Digital
If you've been paying attention to web design lately, you've probably noticed that every agency seems to mention AI. Some make it sound like it's a magic button that builds perfect websites. Others avoid talking about it altogether.
I figured it's better to be upfront about how we use it.
The short answer is this: yes, we use AI. Mostly Claude. Sometimes ChatGPT. But neither of them designs our clients' websites.
They're tools, not designers.
I've been building websites for small businesses for years, and one thing I've learned is that no software understands a business owner the way a conversation does. AI doesn't know why your family opened a bakery twenty years ago. It doesn't know why customers keep coming back to your repair shop instead of the one two streets away. It definitely doesn't know why people in Laguna browse a website differently from someone shopping in Makati.
That's still our job.
AI handles the boring parts. We focus on the important ones.
When I first started building websites, I'd spend hours writing placeholder text just so a homepage wouldn't look empty. I'd manually rewrite product descriptions, organize content into sections, and tweak little bits of copy over and over.
It wasn't difficult work. It was just time-consuming.
Now I can ask Claude to help draft those first versions in a few minutes.
That doesn't mean the copy goes straight onto a client's website. Most of it gets rewritten anyway. But starting with a rough draft is a lot better than staring at a blank screen.
The time we save usually goes into things clients actually notice.
We'll spend longer discussing whether the homepage answers the right questions. We'll simplify a booking process. We'll adjust the layout after watching how someone actually uses the site.
Those decisions have a much bigger impact than spending another hour writing placeholder paragraphs.
AI is surprisingly good at catching small mistakes
One thing I didn't expect when I started using AI was how useful it is for reviewing work.
Imagine you've been looking at the same website for three days. After a while, your brain starts skipping over obvious mistakes because you've seen them too many times.
Sometimes Claude notices things we've missed.
Maybe the services page says a business is open seven days a week, but the contact page still lists Monday to Saturday. Maybe two sections accidentally explain the same thing. Maybe a paragraph sounds confusing.
Would we eventually catch those ourselves?
Probably.
But having another set of eyes speeds things up, and clients end up with fewer revisions later.
It also helps us keep projects affordable
Most of the businesses we work with aren't giant companies.
They're cafés, contractors, clinics, small resorts, family businesses, or someone finally deciding it's time to replace the website they built ten years ago.
They're careful with their budget, and honestly, they should be.
If AI saves us three or four hours of repetitive work, I'd rather pass that value on to the client than bill them for tasks a computer can help with.
I'd rather spend those hours improving the website than filling out a timesheet.
That's one reason we've been able to keep our process lean without cutting corners.
Keeping a website updated is harder than most people expect
Launching a website is the exciting part. Keeping it current is the part that almost everyone forgets about.
A few months after launch, business hours change. A new service gets added. Someone wants to post photos from a recent event. Then life gets busy, and suddenly the website still says "Happy New Year" in June.
We've seen it happen more times than I can count.
This is another place where AI has become genuinely useful.
If a client sends us a few bullet points about a new service or promotion, we can turn that into a decent first draft much faster than before. The important part is that it's still reviewed and rewritten by us before it goes live.
That's something I think gets lost in conversations about AI.
A first draft isn't a finished product.
It's the starting point.
The final version still needs to sound like the business, not like a chatbot.
Research is faster. Guessing happens less.
One of the biggest mistakes in web design is assuming every business needs the same kind of website.
A local dental clinic has different priorities than a beach resort. A law office isn't trying to attract the same customers as a café. Even two businesses in the same industry can have completely different audiences.
Before AI, I'd spend a lot of time reading competitors' websites, industry articles, customer reviews, and whatever else I could find before planning a project.
I still do that.
The difference is that AI helps organize the information much faster.
Instead of spending an hour collecting notes from ten different sources, I can spend that hour thinking about what those notes actually mean for the client.
That's the part clients are really paying for—not someone who knows how to search Google quickly, but someone who can make good decisions from the information.
"Won't my website end up looking like everyone else's?"
This is probably the question we hear most often.
Honestly, I think people blame AI for a problem that existed long before AI showed up.
Generic websites have always existed.
You've probably seen them.
The stock photo of two people shaking hands.
The paragraph that says, "We are committed to excellence and customer satisfaction."
The button that says "Learn More" but doesn't actually tell you anything.
None of those came from AI.
They came from people taking shortcuts.
I've seen designers copy entire layouts from popular template websites years before ChatGPT was even released.
The tool wasn't the problem then, and it isn't the problem now.
A website becomes memorable because someone took the time to understand the business behind it.
One of my favorite parts of a project is the first conversation with a client.
Sometimes they'll casually mention something they've never included on their website before.
Maybe they've been serving the same community for thirty years.
Maybe the business started in their parents' garage.
Maybe customers travel across town because they trust one particular technician.
Those small details often become the strongest parts of the website.
No AI model could have guessed them.
That's why those conversations still matter more than any software we use.
Why we're open about using AI
Some agencies don't mention AI at all.
Others make it the center of every sales pitch.
Neither approach feels right to me.
I'd rather just tell clients the truth.
We use AI where it genuinely saves time or helps us improve our work.
We don't use it to avoid thinking.
We don't use it to replace conversations with clients.
And we definitely don't generate an entire website, hit publish, and call it a day.
If a client asks how we built something, we're happy to explain.
I don't think using AI is something agencies should hide.
I also don't think it's something worth bragging about.
It's simply another tool that's become part of how modern websites get built.
At the end of the day, nobody hires us because we use AI.
They hire us because they want a website that helps their business.
Most clients don't ask what software we use.
They ask different questions.
"Will people find my business on Google?"
"Can customers book an appointment without calling me?"
"Can I finally stop apologizing for my old website?"
Those are the problems we're trying to solve.
Sometimes AI helps us solve them faster. Sometimes it doesn't help at all.
There are projects where Claude gives us a useful first draft in five minutes. There are other days where we ignore its suggestions completely because they don't fit the client or the project.
That's the reality of using AI professionally. It's useful, but it's far from perfect.
I don't think the future of web design is replacing people with AI.
I think it's removing the repetitive parts of the job so we can spend more time on the parts that actually need experience, curiosity, and good judgment.
That's where we want to spend our time.
Talking with clients.
Learning about their business.
Figuring out why customers choose them instead of the competition.
Designing a website that reflects those answers instead of looking like another template on the internet.
If AI helps us get there more efficiently, great.
If it doesn't, we'll do it the old-fashioned way.
The goal has never changed.
Build websites that are easy to use, fast to load, and genuinely useful for the businesses that trust us with their online presence.
Thinking about a new website?
If you're planning to build a new website, or finally replace the one that's been sitting untouched for years, we'd be happy to talk.
Not to sell you on AI.
Just to understand your business, answer your questions, and help you figure out what actually makes sense for you.
Whether we end up working together or not, you'll at least leave the conversation with a clearer idea of where your website should be heading.
About the Author
I'm the founder of Plainvert Digital, a small web design agency based in Laguna.
Over the past several years, I've worked with business owners from different industries—from local service businesses and small retailers to companies looking for a more professional online presence. One thing they've all had in common is that they didn't really want "a website." They wanted more inquiries, more customers, or simply a website they weren't embarrassed to share.
That's the kind of work we enjoy.
Technology changes every year. New design trends come and go. AI will keep improving.
The goal, though, stays the same: build websites that solve real business problems and treat clients fairly along the way.