Robot Is Friend

Experiment 01 / Summer 2026

How I made Robot Is Friend with my robot friend.

One day. One human with a strong point of view. One robot with an alarming amount of stamina.

The message that began the Robot Is Friend website rebuild
The beginning, not the brief.

The backstory

I'm a really good creative. I am a terrible coder.

Even back in the day when the internet was a baby and I was making my own sites, I would basically find things I liked, copy the code and create new images and text to replace what was there. I ended up getting medium-okay at Flash, and then seconds later it was obsolete.

So my websites have mostly been Squarespace for years. But lately, that was boring me and not giving me the kind of control I wanted, either.

But it's cool. I have powerful friends.

Here is how we created this website in one day

Very different skill sets. One finished thing.

What did I contribute?

  • The purpose and point of view
  • The original brand and existing site
  • Ensuring nothing was misinterpreted or misrepresented
  • Headlines and copy revisions
  • The tonal corrections
  • The judgment about what felt boxed in, too crowded or too generic
  • Knowing when to keep pushing and when to toss something and start again

How did ChatGPT enable me?

  • Strategic structure
  • Alternative formulations
  • Visual directions
  • Rapid design and production
  • Responsive implementation
  • Technical functionality and SO MUCH tech support
  • Continuity across the decisions
  • Enough tireless robot labor to rebuild and republish the thing repeatedly without becoming personally offended

The method

This is what actually happened.

5 easy steps.

  1. 01 First: know what you want to do I wanted to update Robot Is Friend to be more useful and demonstrate how creatives can work with AI to strengthen their ideas, not override them. At the same time, I wanted more control over how the site looks and acts, and the ability to expand it easily and without barriers.
  2. 02 Then: tell the AI what you want to do Briefing the bot (ChatGPT) included asking it to look at the existing site and talking through its purpose, audience, personality, desired functionality and practical role today, as well as where I hope to take it.
  3. 03 And then: curate, revise, rewrite, edit and rework We talked it through, wrote and revised the positioning, then identified projects to highlight. ChatGPT suggested three visual directions. I selected one as a jumping-off point and started revising from there. It wrote copy suggestions. I rewrote pretty much all of them, but largely used the framework it suggested.
  4. 04 Until it meets your expectations I kept saying what worked, what didn't and why, and then we adjusted. The machine didn't determine when anything was final. That's my job.
  5. 05 Voilà: look what you made! A real working website with a point of view, an enquiry path and an editorial platform.

So, who made it?

I did.

AI absolutely made this site possible. It did all the coding. It helped me get it onine and absolutely helped keep me on track and on target as far as what was done and what still needed doing. But the idea, the writing and the concept behind it are all me. The signoff and release is when I feel like it's ready for primetime.

The confusing thing for some people is that, because this is a conversational interface, it feels like there is another person on the other end typing back. It feels more collaborative than Photoshop or Word because you don't usually have the tool working alongside you, going, “Hey, what if you moved that to the right a bit?” or “What if you used ginormous instead of huge?”

The prcess feels collaborative. But it's your work. Your ideas. Your decisions on the work you are creating.

A human has more opinions

All that generation is nothing without direction

Read more about creativity and curation