WPS 006: AI in Web Design: Boosting Creativity and Efficiency with Matt Gilliam

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[00:00:00] Cathy: Okay, I'm here with Matt Gilliam. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Really good. I'm so glad that you're here with us. Uh, I've been looking forward to doing this AI talk. This is the hot topic, right? It's all anyone's talking about, put on the news, it's ai, even in national news, it's like, oh, AI always works its way in there.

[00:00:20] So it is a hot topic to talk about, and I'm excited to hear about how you use it and what you think of it. Yeah, but let's, um, go ahead first and just hear about what you do. Um, you run your own business, talk about your business and maybe how you got there.

[00:00:38] Matt: Okay. So I started my business Optic Cell Media back in 2016 after running an IT consulting company with a good friend of mine for several years.

[00:00:47] Um, I also have a degree in graphic design, so that's what I major in. Um, I've worked in different tech and graphic design roles. Um, but now I work as a freelance graphic designer with focus on WordPress web design and online marketing. Also enjoy helping local business owners increase their online visibility with amazing websites, content creation, SEO consulting, ad words management, photography, and other services.

[00:01:12] Cathy: Wow. Okay. Photography too. We have that in common as well. I was a photography major.

[00:01:17] Matt: Yeah, I recently got a drone last year, so, and that's where I paid for itself a few times over.

[00:01:22] Cathy: Really? That's cool.

[00:01:24] Matt: I'm excited to do more drone work this year too.

[00:01:26] Yeah.

[00:01:27] Cathy: For your websites?

[00:01:28] Matt: Yes.

[00:01:29] Cathy: Okay, cool. That's great.

[00:01:32] Matt: Yeah, I may, uh, take pictures and take video from my clients and they love it.

[00:01:37] Cathy: Oh yeah. That is super cool. That's another thing that's super hot. It's been out for a while, right? Drones have been around for a while, but, um, still, I, I think they're still, um, Intriguing to people and you know, we get that bird's eye view that we don't normally, we don't normally get without hiring somebody to fly a plane.

[00:01:57] Matt: Right, exactly. Yeah. It's a lot cheaper.

[00:01:59] Cathy: Exactly. All right, so, so what clients do you work with? Who, who would you say your main clients or your industries that you work with?

[00:02:07] Matt: So my main clients are local business owners in the Chicago suburbs. Um, some industries include landscaping, distribution centers and CPAs.

[00:02:17] Also work with a lot of skilled tradesmen business owners, such as electricians, carpet cleaners, power washers, HVAC companies. Um, I provide most of my clients with web design and managed SEO marketing services. Mm-hmm. I also provide 'em, of course, with the photography and video editing services.

[00:02:34] Cathy: Do you copywrite?

[00:02:36] Matt: I do copy, do copywrite for my client's websites. Oh, yes. Ever since, um, the AI tools like came out, you know, and I've been, you know, I tested them out and figured out how to use them then. Started using for like one of my clients and he thought it was just absolutely amazing. He, he thought like I was just an amazing writer, you know?

[00:02:55] Cathy: That's awesome.

[00:02:56] Matt: Can't tell the difference?

[00:02:58] Cathy: Oh, that's really good. So we're gonna dig more into that. Um, do you hire subcontractors for copywriting or SEO work ever? Is it, or does it depend on budget?

[00:03:09] Matt: Before the AI used to yeah, I used to. Hire, sub, uh, subcontract. Um, I work for copywriters. Um, Not as much anymore. I do if there, if I, if depending on the budgets or the deadline, um, and the project itself, no, I, I, I typically do the ai.

[00:03:29] Ever since AI tools came out, I started doing AI copywriting myself. Um, if I ever get overwhelmed or the budget allows for it, I do hire copywriter to do, um, copywriting from, um, my web design projects. But, um, for the most part I've been doing it all myself. Uh, but when it comes down to like blog posts, I do have another company do blog posts for my clients.

[00:03:52] Um, that takes a lot more in depth research. When it comes to AI tools. It really depends on what you input. You still have to do a lot of research yourself. You can't just expect the AI tools to do all the research for you just yet. They can do quite a bit, you know, but you still have to like, refine their outputs and build upon what they give you.

[00:04:10] And double check your facts, make sure what they're saying is, um, true.

[00:04:15] Cathy: So you write, when you're doing this, your yourself, and using ai, you write all the pages, all the content for all the pages.

[00:04:21] Matt: For the most part? Yes.

[00:04:23] Cathy: Wow. Mm-hmm. Okay. Woo. That was something I used to do years ago when I was the one stop shop and, um, you know, quickly got burned out on that because all those things you could do it, you know, became their own little professions separate, you know, and I.

[00:04:41] I just decided hiring was the easier way to go. Cuz you know, it's a marketing type of writing so it's kind of its own forte.

[00:04:49] Matt: Yeah. When I first started doing web design years ago, like when I was a teenager in my twenties, um, I used to always to struggle with copywriting so much, you know, and I'm sure a lot of web designers are probably guilty of just going to like competitor's website, taking some copy writing from them changing some texts around, be like, okay, this looks different enough and it reads good. And, but you know, that's just like, that's not good to do, you know? So that's why I'm like, okay, I'm gonna hire copywriters because I, I want this to be unique. I want it to be, do it right, you know, even though it costs more money for my clients, you know, and I swear I probably lost some jobs because of that.

[00:05:26] But, um, with these new AI tools, I've been actually gaining jobs cuz I'm able to, um, provide a lower proposal. You know, for our website.

[00:05:35] Cathy: Right, right. Um, so how long have you been using AI in the business?

[00:05:40] Matt: I've been using AI since the fall of 2021. Uh, when I first came across a YouTube video looking for local SEO tips and then mentioned the AI writer.

[00:05:51] Um, and I started using this AI writer for like a few months just to get hang of it, to see what I could really do. And then I had a client come along, wanted me to, um, add pages to his websites and I told him about, I'm gonna do this with AI writing. He's like, sure, go ahead. You know, and I did, and I was able to do it quite quickly.

[00:06:09] I was amazed. Instead of taking weeks or months or however long, you know, I mean, I was able to write so much content within just a few days. It was just amazing for me. And, um, he actually loved it too as well.

[00:06:23] Cathy: Okay. So did he know you were using ai? Yes. Oh yeah. And your clients know you use ai, they're okay with it?

[00:06:29] Matt: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, AI is like, to me, it's. It's a tool just like anything else. I mean, you're gonna use a hammer to nail a nail into a piece of wood, or you can use, you know, a, a nail gun to put a nail in a piece of wood, you know, or this is just like the next new tool to able drive that nail into the wood.

[00:06:51] You know, it's just something new that people can use to just expand their knowledge and cuz you can answer questions and get answers and learn from it and hopefully it's right most of the time.

[00:07:04] Cathy: Well that is the trick too. That is so cool. What a great analogy. It's just another tool for putting the nail in the wood.

[00:07:12] I like that. Mm-hmm. To just to get the result. The same result.

[00:07:15] Matt: Yes. But you'd be able to do it more quicker and efficiently.

[00:07:18] Cathy: Well, and who doesn't like that? Right? I mean, like you said, it saves money for the client, saves you grief and time. Um, it's a lot easier to do things yourself if you can, rather than hiring a contractor, a subcontractor.

[00:07:32] I mean, they're convenient and they're great, but sometimes it's just easier to just keep rolling in the project yourself. So you mostly use AI for writing, correct. Do you use it for anything else?

[00:07:45] Matt: Um, I'll write content for websites. I also use it for social media posts. I do a lot of Google posts for clients.

[00:07:53] Um, in my business with, um, my local business owners I work with, Google is a big focus of mine. And not just their websites, but making sure I'm writing Google posts. Um, Google loves seeing companies write Google posts and have the keywords in there, and, Of course, they'll just rank companies who make posts more often, so I offer that as a service to my clients.

[00:08:14] And yeah, like, like once or twice a week posts for companies and it definitely helps them to get a boost in visibility where their Google business profiles.

[00:08:24] Cathy: Okay. When you say Google posts, here's my ignorance. Yes. What do you mean? What do you mean by Google posts?

[00:08:31] You know how you can post a Twitter or, and make a Facebook post?

[00:08:34] You can do the same thing for Google. Okay. If you have a Google business profile you can make, I did not know that for that. Yes. Lots of people do not know that. And if you take advantage of that, you know, it definitely helps.

[00:08:47] Oh my gosh. Is that, how old is that? Has that been around?

[00:08:51] Matt: It's been around like forever.

[00:08:52] Yeah. I think even since the Google plus days, you know, I think it came over when they quit Google Plus they brought over to the profiles

[00:09:01] Cathy: Because I was thinking Google Plus, I remember that. And then they phased that out and then Google posts. Good to know. Note to self. Do you ever use AI for creating web design or graphics?

[00:09:18] Matt: Uh, definitely. Um, I use it more for inspiration. I use Mid Journey and the AI image generator. Um, and what I use for that, I'll have it generate web design layouts for certain industries or, or industry that I'm working with. And so it'll spell out like four different designs. I can give you like different colors and schemes and I can kind of guide you what I want.

[00:09:43] And, um, even though nothing looks perfect when it renders out, It gives me a lot of inspiration. AI image generators are not that great on making a final product, but what they're good at is composition and colors, and that's what I take notice with of how they lay out all the elements on a page, how they do their borders, or how they do the graphics.

[00:10:04] Maybe I can take like, um, the picture, a picture or same way cuz pictures are never really the best, but it, it gives me an idea of how I could take a picture and present it and then lay out all the graphics and my colors on top. So it's just like going to like Themeforest and looking at different designs.

[00:10:21] Um, you're having AI image generated, drawing something more towards your taste in a way, but it also adds a lot more, um, syn agness to it in a way. It makes it more composition wise, just looks a lot more better. So I've been trying to use that little, it's, it's pretty new. So I've been trying to figure different ways of how use AI for arts.

[00:10:43] Another way I use it is I've recently discovered is making tileable subtle gray textures where you have like a gray texture that's seamless and use it for a background on your webpage and you can overlay it with a color or gradients. Um, use the multiply CSS on. Um, so it just mixes in with your color and it looks fantastic, and you can control the low pass, you can control the strength of it.

[00:11:07] And so it's one way I've figured out.

[00:11:10] Cathy: That is so cool. If, if nothing else, I'm coming away with that one. I think that is so cool cuz so many times I need backgrounds and some of my clients, it just, it, they just don't po you know, you don't have the ideas right away. And I just kind of struggle and I look for things, you know, on the photo.

[00:11:29] Uh, Websites, but to just come up with backgrounds is so cool. And to have a library, like create a bunch and have 'em ready for use. And then, like you said, throwing an overlay on 'em so that you can use them over and over again. Just different colors. Yeah, it works pretty well. That is super cool.

[00:11:48] Matt: Yeah, it, it's not good making like full realistic stuff, like perfect just yet, but it's really good at making abstract arts so.

[00:11:56] If you can think of different ways of how you can use abstract arts within your web design. Um, and a lot of like background cell design textures are very abstract, so it actually ends up working. Um, and there might be some other designs that some our people might figure out, like how they can make with, um, the AI machine right to use for their websites.

[00:12:15] That'd be interesting to find out what other people are using.

[00:12:18] Cathy: So if you wanted an accurate image of a dog, it probably, it's not gonna do a super great job.

[00:12:25] Matt: Right, yeah, there's probably, it'd probably like be missing a limb or have like extra like, um, like um, digits or something, extra paws or something will look off with it, or the ear won't be correct or the tail won't be correct.

[00:12:41] Like there's something will be off, you know. I, I would imagine the next year or two they're gonna be solving those problems. We might actually yeah, end up using more AI and generators for content in our web design.

[00:12:54] Cathy: Wow, that's really cool. Um, yeah, I, I, now my wheels are turning. Um, so do you. To use these services.

[00:13:04] A lot of 'em have maybe a free option, but you're paying premium for these so you can have 'em for work.

[00:13:10] Matt: Yeah, so I currently use Jasper for my AI content writing. Um, it's $59 a month, and that gives you what they call a boss mode, which is essentially just a, their document writer. It's very powerful.

[00:13:24] They also have their own chat bots, so it's like ChatGPT, but with a lot more tools. And they also have templates that you can use. I like, I really like their document writer because I can ha, I can go into their chat bot generate like headlines, bring them into the document. Then I can just have Jasper start writing content for each headline. It's pretty neat.

[00:13:46] Cathy: Really. That was gonna be my next question. How do you, just generally, I don't need specifics, but how do you prompt Jasper to create a a page of stuff? A page of content? You just put the headings in?

[00:13:59] Matt: Yeah, so like, you can just start with like, um, give me the top 10 most popular headings for HVAC contractor website homepage.

[00:14:08] You know, and you can get like a whole entire list. And if you don't like that, you can tell like, gimme 10 more or 20 more and you know, it'll keep generating and you can take something that you like. And, and, and actually also in a lot of cases, I'll tell it to shorten it. I'm like, okay, shorten it. Cuz a lot of times it'll make it really long.

[00:14:26] So I'll tell it to shorten it cuz we want things to be short on a webpage PE cuz 80% of people only read headlines, you know? So that's the thing I try and focus on with my web designs. Headlines, so, so I wanna make sure it's catchy. Um, AI does use active voice to get people's attention, so that's right, like on by default.

[00:14:45] Um, in Jasper, you can also choose your tone of voice. So you can choose it to be funny or you can choose to be informative or creative, knowledgeable.

[00:14:57] Cathy: So you say to it, write, write this content in the style of. I don't know, funny comedy or how do you, how do you tell it?

[00:15:07] Matt: Yeah. If you want it to be far humorous, you can rewrite this content using, uh, humor.

[00:15:13] Um, they also have a content improver, so you can actually con copy content for all their websites put in there and it'll rewrite and improve upon it. Wow. And you can use that content. And it's also unique too. It's plagiarism free. Okay. Because I use the neuron software, um, neuron platform called Rytr, which is also AI Rytr, but they have a free plagiarism checker, so you can actually paste all your content to Rytr and look for plagiarism and it'll come back clean.

[00:15:43] It's amazing if, if it does come back as any hits. Which rarely it does, but it sometimes do, it will show you the percentage and what sites and matches with, so you can actually go and check that out and you can change up that sentence that highlights for you. So it's unique.

[00:15:58] Cathy: Wow. That does sound like a little bit of a gray area there.

[00:16:02] I think that would be part of the controversy of whether it's a good thing or not, cuz somebody else wrote that.

[00:16:08] Matt: But I think, yeah, but at the same time, Like if you're gonna have a copywriter, they're gonna go to a website, they're gonna do research, they're gonna, they can read that same paragraph and they, and they can, they can write it their own way.

[00:16:22] The AI content writer is literally doing the same thing. It's reading it and then rewriting it. Um, I remember back in like school, I think it was like my eighth grade teacher when doing, learning how to write essays and whatnot, and, We didn't really have the internet. We only had encyclopedias. You know, we had the library at school.

[00:16:43] That's all we had. And she told us in order to not plagiarize, like your essays, just copy straight from the book. What you do, you read the paragraph, you close the book, and then you write about that paragraph, you know? And the AI content writers are literally doing the same thing. Yes. It may seem like you're cheating.

[00:17:00] You're just doing copy, paste, rewrites. Really, really fast and automate for us. But that's the thing, it's the AI tool that helps to automate this copywriting process.

[00:17:12] Cathy: Now, when you, I think you might have mentioned this or touched on it, but when you get this result out of the AI tool, you have to do, you have to edit it and, um, adjust some things when you put it into the webpage.

[00:17:28] Matt: Most definitely. I'll have it even spell like three different outputs or multiple outputs and I'll take pieces, sentences from paragraphs and kind of crafting the gutter myself until I get something that I like. A lot of times it'll add add out fluff that I don't like and I'll just use like half of the paragraph cuz I'm like, okay, that reads a lot better.

[00:17:50] I'll need this upper half. You know, I just. The end part, you know, with the call to action. That sounds great. I may change around a little bit, uh, if I don't like how, what some of the words it's using. Um, I also may just like, highlight in Jasper, allow me to explain it to a child so you can have it.

[00:18:12] Dumb it down to like a fifth grade level or eighth grade level, and it'll just simplify your sentences. So you have like, if like you have like a long sentence outputs, it'll break it down to like two or three sentences are really simple and easier to read.

[00:18:24] Cathy: Yeah. Um, yeah, something about sometimes I know when I've played with ChatGPT and that's the only one I've really played with, um, It'll come up with some good information.

[00:18:37] Some of it you can read and go, that just, that's not really saying much, so get rid of that. Mm-hmm. And then it, it can sometimes use words that would not be used in this particular site. You know, they just don't fit with what we're. What the business is. Right. So I have seen that where you have to like, it's good overall, but you have to like pick and choose and cut things out and adjust things.

[00:19:03] Matt: It's interesting that you mentioned that with like the tone of voice for everything. Cuz Jasper recently released new tool. I, I have even yet to even, um, try out myself. But you can. Create a brand of voice or a voice for your brand within Jasper and create a whole entire, certain tone of voice and certain words that you would like it to use and when it's running for your project.

[00:19:28] Wow. Because all your projects in Jasper, you can have it individualized for each individual client.

[00:19:34] Cathy: And then well, it saves that. So then if you come back and you need to do other things, it's got that in in there already. Mm-hmm. That is amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really amazing.

[00:19:46] Matt: Yeah. They, they just keep on thinking more stuff and they're just, yeah.

[00:19:50] Just keep bringing more stuff to the table.

[00:19:53] Cathy: You know, something you mentioned about accuracy. Um, My understanding is that ChatGPT is only as recent as 2021. I'm guessing that's probably a rolling, basically two years behind kind of thing.

[00:20:08] Matt: Here or there, their computers are still trying to catch up and analyze data as well.

[00:20:14] Cathy: Uh, it's gotta be an immense amount of data.

[00:20:17] Matt: Oh yeah. I mean, Google has Bard, and I think that's up to date. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that, but, You can get a lot of like pretty recent web results cuz then Google's looking at their own data, you know, and I've been starting to use Bard and testing that out.

[00:20:34] Cathy: And so that's, that's Google's ai? Yes. And is that available to the average person?

[00:20:41] Matt: It is, and it's free.

[00:20:44] Cathy: We like free Bard, b b a r d?

[00:20:47] Matt: Yes. Dot google.com.

[00:20:50] Cathy: Okay. Yet another thing to add to their plethora of stuff. When you go into your Google account and you click on the little checkerboard and there's 6,000 tools, now we have more AI stuff.

[00:21:03] Right. Well, okay, so I know I'm jumping around here, but, so Google has their own ai. Do they, this is a big question for people. Does Google uh, downgrade you if it determines you're using AI for the content.

[00:21:22] Matt: Well that depends on how you use the ai. So Google stance on content written by AI is that as long as it's helpful and written for human, they have no problem with it.

[00:21:36] What Google is not okay with is content that's AI generated in order to game the system. It's Google's job to show the most helpful and relevant information to search queries. So writing a script that AI creates 10,000 pages or posts will probably not generate a website that's very helpful. Uh, you'll most likely get a lot of fluff and filler text that'll be boring, repetitive to read.

[00:21:58] If someone writes using AI by giving it research inputs, then taking, editing those outputs or even just parts of outputs and then placing it on a website and layout where it's helpful to humans. Then Google will like that content. And this is actually through Google's, um, John Mueller as well. He's like the face of Google search, as you know, and yeah, he says so long as you're not just outputting contents and just copy paste on page and just all populating pages without even doing any research or anything. Um, as long as you're not doing that, you're making the content helpful, you're okay. They'll, you'll be just fine.

[00:22:37] Cathy: Man. I have been to some of those websites and before I really knew about AI per se, I would go to some websites that would show up in my search results and I would read it and it, I would think, this isn't really saying anything.

[00:22:53] It's saying a lot of words that don't give me the information that I'm looking for. Right. So now that I know what's going on, I think that's what was happening. They were probably just feeding a bunch of stuff into an AI and then throwing it up there and hey, it showed up on the first page, cuz I don't go much beyond the first page.

[00:23:15] Mm-hmm. Of results. And it showed up on the first page. Even though it wasn't super helpful. Mm-hmm. So hopefully they'll crack down on that, like you said.

[00:23:24] Matt: Yeah, Google right now is all about helpful contents as you know, like the helpful content update that they had. So that's their main thing. This is their job to show the most relevant information to people.

[00:23:36] So, and it has to show a helpful information too, and by being helpful, it has to have value. In order to have value, you have to have facts. So within your paragraphs and your sentences, you gotta have like facts that you're saying or else it's just filler text saying how great that company is, you know, or that service is, you know, but it doesn't really describe the company or the service, you know?

[00:24:01] So you gotta give it like more value by giving it more research. Um, facts.

[00:24:07] Cathy: Yes, it has the feeling of taking you in a circle that. Never ends and you don't really get what you're looking for. It's very frustrating actually. Right. So, um, okay, so you said you have memberships with, uh, Jasper $59 a month. Is that right?

[00:24:24] Yes. And do you have other subscriptions you pay for that are worth it?

[00:24:28] Matt: I pay for Mid Journey, uh, $30 a month to get unlimited, um, renders from them. Um, they also have a $10 a month plan. You can generate about 200 images with that a month. Um, Rytr is currently free. I, I actually got a deal through, um, entrepreneur email.

[00:24:47] I paid $75 one time to get 75,000 words a month. But currently, uh, Rytr is free and when you sign up, you get 10,000 words per month.

[00:24:56] Okay. So what happens at 10,000 words then You just, you just get shut down, or

[00:25:01] Pretty much until the next month, until you pay off.

[00:25:05] Cathy: 10,000 words is pretty good though, especially if you have these other tools as well.

[00:25:09] So that's pretty awesome.

[00:25:11] Matt: Oh, it's, uh, otherwise it's $9 a month, uh, for a hundred thousand words.

[00:25:15] Cathy: Oh, that's great. That's not bad at all. So you pay all these per month and you're. Making that money back easily. Correct?

[00:25:24] Matt: Oh, easily. Yeah. Yeah. I write two posts and I make my money back, you know?

[00:25:28] Cathy: Wow. Oh cool. That's encouraging. Um, gosh, this is so helpful for me because, um, the clientele that I work with, a lot of them don't have any content to start with. They're just getting started in their business and. There's not a lot to work with. So coming up with content, I have worksheets to have them fill out and answer questions.

[00:25:51] And then I would take the question, the responses and try and make headlines and paragraphs out of them. And that's not always easy cuz they're not giving full thoughts, you know, they're just listing words. Um, but now with the AI stuff, I did work with ChatGPT uh, for the last couple websites that I had to do that with.

[00:26:14] And it was fabulous. I mean, I actually had content to work with and I had to adjust it, like we said, you know, and pull out some words that weren't the right voice, but so much faster Lightning, lightning faster for me comparatively. So just a super. Helpful tool.

[00:26:33] Matt: Oh, a hundred percent. I can write a whole month's worth of posts in an afternoon.

[00:26:38] Oh my gosh. You know, so it's,

[00:26:41] Cathy: That's amazing. That's amazing. And you know what, people are probably listening to this and they're, they're still questioning whether this is the right way we should go. But at the end of the day, if you're helping your clients get more visitors, get more money, and you're making money too, That to me is a win-win.

[00:27:01] So I don't see any problem with it so far. Right. Um, so we don't have to worry about detectors cuz there's a lot of AI detectors out there.

[00:27:15] Matt: Right? I don't think they're accurate.

[00:27:17] Cathy: No. I've played with them and I, as you know, I came across, I did some stuff detecting my own text and. It determined I am a robot.

[00:27:29] Yeah, exactly. I'm like, that's my own text.

[00:27:34] Matt: I think Google is more concerned about plagiarism, and if anything helpful content.

[00:27:39] Cathy: Yeah. Well that's, that's really good to know. I think that's super important. Okay, big question here. Do you see AI replacing web designers?

[00:27:50] Matt: Um, not in the foreseeable future, no. I don't think AI would replace web designers at copywriters anytime soon.

[00:27:58] If anything, I think it'll help web designers and copywriters create better and more well written contents. People will still want the human elements and expertise of a human web designer and copywriter. These AI content administrators are really just tools to help create content. AI still needs proper inputs from a human, and human still needs to edit the outputs and added to a layout to make it helpful to other humans.

[00:28:22] Cathy: So the human has to still go in and figure out what to do with it.

[00:28:25] Matt: Yes, most definitely. And I also, I've read an article, I think it was yesterday, about IBM talking about all their AI tools on an enterprise level. Um, and they're saying that AI won't necessarily replace like managers and other roles.

[00:28:41] Rather, it would be those who adapt to using AI tools will advance and benefit while those who don't use AI tools would be considered less for roles and not knowing how to use these tools.

[00:28:51] Cathy: Okay. So, I mean, that's a really good sign for the job market. Yes. So they're looking for people who are AI savvy.

[00:28:58] Definitely. Which is interesting. I was mentioning earlier to you that, um, you know, when we talked before the show, that I just went into my, uh, freelancing group on Facebook and the hot topic that everyone was talking about was AI and how it's replaced some people's jobs. Somebody had commented that.

[00:29:20] Their company had let go of a few writers because of ai. So the people who are left are to be using AI for writing. So on the one hand, yay for the people who have the skill. On the other hand, for the regular writer who maybe doesn't know how to do that or doesn't wanna do that, they, I guess they have to just adjust and, um, reposition themselves maybe.

[00:29:43] Matt: Yeah. That's what it really comes down to, the. People who are not really using it, they're, they're gonna have to learn how to use it regardless one day or not in order to just benefit with their job, you know? And also if you're going to look for a job too as well, having this tool set on your resume I think is pretty huge and would be beneficial to a company cuz it shows that you are resourceful and can be more efficient by using AI tools.

[00:30:12] Cathy: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's a good angle. I guess it just depends how you wanna look at it. Um, Okay, so we're, we're not losing our jobs yet as web designers for sure. Cuz the graphic, Hey, if I wanna create a dog and his paw's missing, that's, that's an issue. So,

[00:30:29] Matt: Yeah, I don't think AI can create a whole website just yet to our liking.

[00:30:34] I think it might be pretty buggy. And I don't know about you, I don't fully trust AI writing code for me, or, or especially for people who don't know code at all. Know, just leave it to someone doesn't know how to code. Have an AI write, a website for them, have a shopping cart and stuff. And there's probably might be security issues going on that you don't know about.

[00:30:56] And, uh, without knowing actually how the code and seeing that this stuff is being written properly and securely, you know, like. There's a lot of issues that can happen there.

[00:31:08] Cathy: Wow. Uh, that's a really good point. I never would've thought, like, okay, security issues. There's probably, you know, just like the web, I mean, when we first got the web, it was.

[00:31:18] Who thought about security so much and now we're locking everything down. We're testing everything, and yeah, putting all security on everything. Two factor authentication. It's a pain in the butt, but you have to do it. So there's things we can't even foresee right now that are probably gonna happen down the road.

[00:31:36] Matt: Right, and, and you can tell AI to like write you a contact form, right? But it won't make it secure unless you tell, make me a secure contact form and it's gonna write more code that you're gonna have to do more with. And then it's just like, you gotta make sure you understand that code if you're gonna implement it.

[00:31:53] And so I don't think like the average person is gonna be able to. Right, like working code with, that's also going to be secure.

[00:32:01] Cathy: Right. Oh my gosh, that's such a good point. I have only played with it to create some css, um, you know, like animation stuff. I haven't really pursued that too much, but boy, it probably would be really handy to write media queries.

[00:32:19] Which drive me crazy. I hate doing those. There's just always so many, but I mean to just, there's gotta be some way to, have you ever done that with media queries or anything? No, I have not. Css? No. Yeah. I mean, I know like the, I use Beaver Builder and there's. You know, different screens it'll adjust for, but it doesn't adjust for all the sizes.

[00:32:41] So sometimes I have to throw in extra media queries anyway to say, you know, this size, which is in between. So, Do this, this, and this.

[00:32:50] Matt: Oh, yeah. The media, Cory, screen size. Oh, I know what you're talking about now. Yeah, css.

[00:32:55] Cathy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Sorry about that. Yeah.

[00:32:57] Matt: Sometimes I have to do that with Elementor, but they actually recently, the past few months, update their stuff where you can have multiple break points in your own custom break points.

[00:33:07] I still have to every so often put my own media queries in there for sure.

[00:33:11] Cathy: Yeah. I, because there's, if they, they hit all the, You know, devices, right? They hit the iPad, you know, portrait, landscape, uh, phone, you know that kinda stuff. But then if you're on a browser, on a PC or something and you resize the window and it doesn't happen to fit one of those break points, sometimes things get wonky.

[00:33:33] So anyway, all that to say, that would be super cool. So yet another thing, note to self try using AI for media queries.

[00:33:43] Matt: I've also used it for finding variables. Um, when doing some PHP code, like through Woo Commerce, um, I, I found that ChatGPT can find variables for different plugins. So if you're trying to program something, you wanna get, like a shopping cart value or something, um, they'll be able to find that for you.

[00:34:05] Cathy: Wow. Well that sounds really helpful and time-saving. And save, save your eyes too. Scanning through code. So, is there anything else that I didn't ask that you might wanna share with us about AI and how to incorporate it? Maybe, maybe some suggestions that people just getting started with it.

[00:34:25] Matt: If you're a web designer, I would recommend have it generate headings for you.

[00:34:30] Tell it to grab like the top 10 headings from, um, certain websites or certain industries. And also ask it to write you bulleted points. Like, gimme write me 10 facts and bulleted lists about this certain topic. You know, a lot of times that works very well. Um, people end up reading that. I also recommend asking it to shorten text too as well.

[00:34:56] A lot of times it makes it long, um, shorter. It's easier to read. Um, it's also easier to place on a webpage and a web design layout too, as well. Um, just having it telling to rewrite certain contents or tell it to write for a child also is beneficial to just, um, simplify text and simplify, um, having people read that text.

[00:35:19] Cathy: So you have to be very specific with the commands you give it.

[00:35:23] Matt: You do, you definitely do.

[00:35:25] Cathy: Write in this voice to this audience, um, on this topic. Right.

[00:35:32] Matt: Yeah. And Jasper allows you to input different text boxes for like the tone of voice and you put a description, you can put your product or, uh, your service in our box.

[00:35:43] So, and they also have like workflows they can work with.

[00:35:46] Cathy: So that kind of prompts you.

[00:35:47] Matt: Yeah, it gives you like different prompts that you can work with.

[00:35:50] Cathy: Yeah. Wow, that's so cool. Okay. I'm definitely checking those out. Um, I love the idea of just getting content together. Then how much easier is it to have something to start with and then, You know, fix it rather than starting with a complete blank page.

[00:36:06] Matt: Right.

[00:36:07] Yeah, that's what I was saying. Instead of starting with a blank page, you know, you work with something and you chip away at that, you know, until you get like your sculpture or your statue, you know?

[00:36:16] Cathy: Nice chip away everything that isn't your content. Um, that's so cool. Matt, this has been really interesting and I've learned a lot.

[00:36:27] Um, I might even have you back again if you would be Oh, that would be wonderful. Able to do that because there's so much, like probably could go down any one of these topics in more depth.

[00:36:38] Matt: I'm sure in the next month. It's just going to completely change even. I'm waiting for Microsoft to implement it into their office products, you know, into like Microsoft Word or

[00:36:49] Excel.

[00:36:50] Cathy: And they will, they own Chachi PT now, right?

[00:36:53] Matt: They do? Yeah. Open ai. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:56] Cathy: Open ai. Right? Oh my gosh.

[00:36:58] Matt: So it's possibly down the pipeline or Windows 12 maybe.

[00:37:02] Cathy: I have also seen that they've already incorporated it into their Edge browser, so, or I'm sorry, it's not the, well, I guess it's the browser, but it's using Bing.

[00:37:12] So if you use Bing as a search engine, which I never do, but maybe now I'll try. Um, so. There's a chat element involved in the search. In, in what you put in there. Yeah. Yes. So it's, it's, it's like starting to think of searching in a different way.

[00:37:31] Matt: Right. Mm-hmm.

[00:37:32] Cathy: Wow. A lot to think about there. So where can we find you if we wanna see what you're up to and, uh, maybe get in touch with you for something?

[00:37:43] Matt: You can find me, uh, at my website opticcell.com O P T I C c e l l.com. Or Instagram, MattGilliam82. I also have a photography website, mattgilliamphotography.com. Uh, I also showcase on my AI art there too as well.

[00:38:00] Cathy: Oh, that's so cool. All right, well thank you so much, Matt. This has been really interesting.

[00:38:06] I think people are gonna love this. So, um, thanks for stopping by and we'll talk again soon.

[00:38:12] Matt: Yeah, and thanks for having me on.