I get asked at least once a week: “Which AI tools should I use for my business website?”
Everyone’s talking about AI. But most of the advice out there is either too vague or trying to sell you something. So let me be specific about what I actually use, what I tried and dropped, and what’s been a waste of money.
The ones I keep coming back to
Cursor — I write code with it every day. It’s not magic. It doesn’t write the whole project for me. But it handles the boring parts: writing boilerplate, generating the same CRUD operations for the fifth time, catching syntax errors before I hit save. It saves me maybe two hours a day. That adds up.
Midjourney — Only for client mockups and placeholder images. I don’t use AI-generated images in production. They look plausible but never quite right. For getting a client to sign off on a layout though, it’s great.
Claude — This is the one that actually surprises me. Not for writing code (though it can), but for debugging. I describe the problem, paste the error, and it usually points me in the right direction. Sometimes it’s wrong. But so are my own guesses sometimes.
The ones I quit
AI page builders — I tried a few that claim to build your whole site from a prompt. The results are always the same: they look generic and the code is a nightmare to modify later. If you just need a landing page tonight, they work. If you want something you can maintain for years, skip them.
AI content generators — The blog posts they write are… fine? They read like a student trying to hit a word count. I still write my own content. (This post included.)
The honest truth
AI saves me time on tedious tasks. It doesn’t replace the actual work of building a good website. Understanding what a client needs, designing a clean layout, making sure it works on mobile. That’s still human work.
What AI really changed is this: I can take on more projects, because the boring parts go faster. I charge the same rate but deliver faster. That’s the real advantage.