AI is everywhere – and so is everyone telling you to use it for everything.
But when it comes t your webstie, your plugins, and the work you ship for clients, the wrong AI shortcut can become a serious liability.
Welcome to a special bonus episode. I’m joined by senior developer, Rob Fisher to talk about where AI actually helps in web design, where it absolutely does not, and the security and stability risks nobody is being loud enough about.
(Quick note – my podcast mic was misbehaving for this one, so the audio isn’t quite as good as usual. Rob’s audio is fine! My producer Neal at Podknows has worked his magic to clean it up so please do stick with it. The conversation is really worth your time.)
We get into:
Why vibe coding is not a shortcut, it is a stack of technical debt waiting to break
How LLMs really work, and why they hallucinate when you let them
Why your prompt boundaries matter as much as your prompt
The chatbot that gave a customer 85 percent off a 10,000 dollar order
What the October 2025 AWS outage tells us about AI first dev cultures
Why AI tools are junior developers, not senior ones, and what that means for your business
Why vibe coded WordPress plugins are a house of cards
How a “safe” plugin can become a Trojan horse with one auto update
What is actually changing in WordPress 7
If you are a designer or developer trying to work out where AI fits into your business without putting your clients at risk, this one is for you.
Skip to the goodbits:
0:00Bonus episode intro and audio note
01:18 Where AI fits in running a website business
02:34 Vibe coding and why it’s a shortcut too far
05:12 The flip side, vibe coding as a learning tool
06:48 Tech debt: your vibe coded site is a liability waiting to break
07:45 What AI cannot do for user journeys and design psychology
09:20 How LLMs actually work, probability engines, not brains
11:30 Hallucinations and the suspiciously short prompt
13:05 Prompt boundaries and staying on topic
15:10 What system prompts at OpenAI and Anthropic actually look like
17:00 The chatbot that gave away an 85% discount on a $10,000 order
19:40 AI first deve houses and the October 2025 AWS outage
22:15 Microsoft layoffs and the AI replacement myth
24:30 Why generative AI is a junior developer, not a senior one
26:20 Vibe coded plugins: The house of cards problem
28:50 The WordPress plugin ecosystem and what it lets in
31:00 How a safe plugin becomes a Trojan horse overnight
33:15 WP Rocket, All in One Migration and the malicious update problem
34:50 WordPress 7 and the new AI APIs, and why it will not feel revolutionary
37:00 Block editor improvements and the abstraction layer problem
38:40 Final thoughts and how to get in touch
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The Websites Made Simple Podcast is produced and managed by Podknows Podcasting*
*from episode 24 onwards – please don’t judge my lovely podcast producer for the absolute hash up of my self-edited initial episodes 🫣