Our Hybrid AI Approach

Welp, I got the call.. there are just too many elephants in the room to ignore so let’s start by addressing the biggest one, The Great Equalizer: AI

Here’s how I see it, AI tools help us work faster and deliver custom digital solutions that once required large teams and large budgets.

For the past few years, we’ve blended AI into the processes that were learned over the decades in web development and digital marketing because it leads to better results for the clients we serve.

The following post is all about how we use AI to:

• Get the speed and capabilities of a team much larger than two people without charging that agency overhead
• Create custom tools and features for clients that usually require a purchase and/or subscription
• Move from idea to finished product way faster, so our clients see working results and progress sooner
• Help us with utilizing large data, like keyword/competitor research and page/post automation
• Quickly create on-demand and one-off (sometimes completely disposable) digital solutions
  

Our Hybrid Approach to AI

Maybe we’re just old old-school, but even with the existence of many all-in-one AI website frameworks and platforms available, we still choose WordPress as the foundation.

WordPress gives our clients full control, is open source (aka free), and an ecosystem that works perfectly alongside AI. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, AI is the spinning rims.

AI works best when it multiplies what a skilled person can do, and my hybrid workflow produces digital solutions that are solid, secure, and easy for clients to manage over the course of time.

Code Editor and Terminal, Still

Cursor is my primary development environment. I’ve went from notepad, to Notepad++, to Sublime, to Atom, to VS Code, to Cursor. Correct, I’ve spent more than twenty years manually writing code before AI started doing it faster and better – you may, or may not, understand how wild my world is right now.

I know what clean loops, efficient functions, proper classes, and good abstraction should look like. And on the frontend side I understand how spacing, performance, and maintainability connect.

I DO NOT USE CLAUDE.

Between Cursor and Warp, dreams that I had never dreamt of have come true and I am like the direct manager and CEO of AI agents that may someday turn on me due to how I treat them some days.

Custom Software > Subscriptions

We build custom features so our clients don’t have to subscribe to platforms. We build them because we believe in custom everything. With AI-assisted development we can now create these tools ourselves and tailor them precisely to each client. Some examples include:

• Custom booking and scheduling systems built around the client’s exact workflow (like Calendly)
• Fast, native-feeling product filters for WooCommerce shops (like WooFilters)
• Highly optimized JSON schema markup that helps search engines display rich results (like Yoast Premium)
• Interconnected custom taxonomies that organize content more intelligently (like CPT UI Pro)
• Mapping and location features designed specifically for the business (like paid Google Cloud)

The features that we develop then belong to the client with no recurring costs for its functionality. Everything lives inside their WordPress site and works exactly as needed. You can see more about this kind of work on our web development services page.

At the time of this post, we are deep in a large custom project build using OpenAI’s Codex. It’s a specialized tool we are creating specifically for our WordPress clients. Ask us about it!?

A Creator in the Loop

AI has also improved how I create audio/music for event videos, personal projects, and other media. I usually begin the old way; humming a melody, air drumming, slapping da bass, singing a rough idea, or playing piano. Sometimes I move into Ableton, my main digital audio workstation, to shape the track further.

Tools like ACE Music and ElevenLabs help refine and expand those human starting points into finished, amazing, original pieces. Haters gonna hate, but this creator-in-the-loop method has truly strengthened our digital media and video production work.

Keep your copyrights.

Creative in the Loop

On the design and branding side we mostly use Figma Make to speed up prototypes and designs. AI is great at generating variations, allowing us to keep the final artistic direction in our hands.

Long before generative features, I considered myself a “photoshopper” and Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator still stay central to my process. The technology speeds up execution, but the vision still comes from experience.

Staying Current with AI

The AI world obviously moves fast and staying hands-on with different models and platforms lets us pick the right approach for each job.

I follow podcasts such as The AI Daily Brief to stay aware of changes without getting lost in too much hype. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, there are a lot of tools and pitfalls, but trusted sources and common sense go a long way.

Delivering More Value, Faster

An example I like to point to are our DAPPS “Disposable web APPS”. These focused, single-purpose web applications used to take days or weeks (or, uh never happened). With AI layered on top of solid development skills we can often deliver DAPPS in a single day.

That speed lets us support workshops, Latte Learning sessions, and client events more frequently and integrate every service we offer, from web design and SEO to branding and media into these experiences.

Looking Ahead

It’s honestly amazing, we can now deliver the level of customization, speed, and polish that once required big agencies, while keeping solutions maintainable on WordPress.

If you are wondering how these approaches might help your next website or digital project, we’re always happy to chat.