Is it possible – if not probable – that the delay of the release of StacksPro is due to an effort to incorporate AI into the new app?
Could AI actually render Stacks unnecessary? Some time ago @yabdab whipped up a Stack with ChatGP that instantly produced the code for a grid stack making creation and insertion of a grid stack unnecessary.
Therefore, couldn’t AI be used to actually create StacksPro or a StacksPro equivalent?
Just wondering.
I think that adding AI’s capabilities to Stacks Pro would be a great bonus. I also think that expecting AI to be a part of the first release of Stacks Pro would be unwise – because it would further delay the release date (I suspect that Stacks Pro would have be rewritten for that purpose), if for no other reason. Also, some developers would have a lot of income wiped out…
At this point, Stacks Pro has been delayed so long that it risks becoming irrelevant. AI has taken off at an unbelievable pace, advancing far faster than we could have imagined. In just a few weeks, AI has reached new levels, making traditional development methods look increasingly outdated. The speed of change is staggering.
Meanwhile, with the maniac they’ve chosen as president in the U.S., he has already signed an executive order dismantling Biden’s AI safety measures. This effectively removes safeguards, leaving AI development unchecked and accelerating even further.
With AI rapidly automating coding and web development, how long before AI itself renders Stacks Pro obsolete? If AI can generate complex layouts and even full websites with just a few prompts, the need for manually built stacks could disappear entirely. AI might not just be a feature in Stacks Pro—it could replace it.
The only comfort—if you can even call it that—is that we are all in the same boat now. AI and automation will replace jobs at an unprecedented rate, and web development is no exception. Society must figure out how to sustain the many people who will lose their livelihoods. The world is changing fast, and we need solutions just as quickly.
I am not so sure about the quality of AI constructed websites, except for a very basic one. Think about it! Websites consist of your content: text, pictures and videos, which need to be uploaded and given specific additional SEO information to accompany them. The rest is the website presentation, which for most of us here involves extremely detailed fine-tuning to match your vision. How do you use prompts to do that? A traditional interface is still required. And there is a lot of hidden functions under the hood in a good website software that requires a human coder to understand all the implications. Can AI really compare to what can be achieved with Foundation 6 for instance? I doubt it. That being said, AI can be incredibly useful, I can certainly see AI being used to supplement website software. You can already have AI write some html and css for a specific purpose, and drop it into a Rapidweaver/stacks project.
Quite possibly Isaiah is using AI to help him code Stacks Pro.
Has anyone tried the AI Website Builder that Jannis mentioned? Or some other similar software? It would be interesting to know the pros and cons.
Gort, I appreciate your perspective, but the speed at which AI is advancing might make this debate irrelevant sooner than we think.
Sam Altman recently stated that OpenAI’s latest model, o3, is already ranked among the top 50 competitive programmers worldwide and could surpass all human coders by the end of 2025. If this prediction holds true, then AI won’t just be a supplementary tool—it will dominate software development.
Right now, AI tools like Framer AI, Wix ADI, and even GitHub Copilot are making web development easier, but they still require human oversight. However, the next wave of AI coders won’t just assist humans—they will autonomously write, debug, and optimize code, continuously improving at a scale no human team can match.
The question isn’t whether AI can match human developers today—it’s how soon it will outperform them completely. If Altman is right, then by 2026, tools like Stacks Pro might not just be outdated; they may be entirely unnecessary.
Have you tried any of the latest AI coding assistants? The results are already impressive, and they’re getting better exponentially.
Sam is full of sh*t. He’s currently raising funding so he has some new moonshot statement every few weeks to keep investors pumping money in. I wouldn’t trust him.
The problem with large language model AI is it’s very expensive to run. This cost for running it is going to catch up with the companies eventually. Cheaper models will exist, but the best results are going to be expensive for the companies, not the customers and this will not last forever.
I’ve found AI is great to create the surface level result, but if you go a little deeper, prompt the AI to make changes, here and there, it eventually descends into a big mess. Unless of course you know what the AI is doing wrong and correct it.
I agree AI is here for good, as a coder myself, I think AI will help the developers more than the no coders. If you lack the knowledge to know when the AI is hallucinating you will get frustrated and be out of your depth very quickly.
So to summarise, there is a good chance AI will help make Stacks Pro even better. Not by helping the users, but by helping the developer do more, faster.
For me, the answer to ‘Could AI actually render Stacks unnecessary?’ is unclear. I’m using AI (LLMs and image generators) every day, but I’m not finding them replacing anything. Actually, they make all kinds of existing tools even more important than they were — if you use, for instance, Midjourney to generate images for a professional purpose, you’re going to be spending hours in PhotoShop or Affinity Photo, and need a scaler too. ChatGPT (or DeepSeek) will help you write a book, but you’ll need a publishing programme and a books-on-demand platform to put it out there.
The big question here, for me, is ‘what is the future for websites?’ My sense, based on recent developments, is that having a site on one’s own domain is critical. Building a business based on a platform — whether that’s TikTok or Facebook or Amazon or Google — is not a safe option. Not now. If you can sell from your own site, even if you sell more elsewhere, you have a backup if something goes wrong with a platform (like the US Government closing it down, or its users fleeing from a toxic owner). Likewise with publishing your own content. And ideally you want your audience coming to your site — if they’re owned by Facebook, they’re not yours.
So people will need sites. Some will go for easy options — the Wixes and the Squarespaces and the Shopifys (but that’s still a dangerous dependency on a platform) — while, at the other end of the spectrum, web teams will still build corporate sites from custom code. The Stacks ecosystem sits somewhere in the middle, along with others. We’re not a huge user base, but it works for us. And I suspect it will continue to do so — I can imagine using AI to generate more and more content in the future (with a lot of input and iteration) but I can’t imagine wanting to say to an AI system ‘build me a website like this and this’. It would be an incredibly tedious process to get it to do exactly what I want.
I agree with James on the importance and benefits of owning your own site. To me, that’s the only logical solution and it only gains relevance – especially nowadays.
But people will always lean towards what’s easy and cheap. And that will lead them towards Facebook, TikTok and Google. Same goes for AI-created websites. Although they are crap (at least for now), more and more people will turn to AI for their websites.
The future of StacksPro and other tools is very shaky, in my opinion. But I am still gladly using RW and stacks. We’ll see what happens…
Very well said James!
And the answer to the original post is… No, Stacks is not currently delayed because it’s getting AI features. Building a good app is hard. Good things come to those who wait. I know we have waited a long time already. Our current setups are working well, and most developers are still creating new products and updates for the Stacks ecosystem. We are here for the long haul.
Norm, I understand the skepticism around Altman—he’s in the business of AI, and of course, he’s raising funding. But unlike most tech leaders, he’s also one of the only ones seriously considering the long-term impact of AI on society.
While many in Silicon Valley focus purely on innovation, Altman has a conscience. He’s not just talking about automation and AI disruption—he’s actively working on solutions to prevent economic collapse when AI inevitably replaces millions of jobs.
His Universal Basic Income (UBI) study was the largest of its kind in the U.S., providing real-world data on how guaranteed income affects work behavior, financial security, and personal well-being. Unlike theoretical discussions, he put $45 million into an actual pilot program to see if UBI could work.
But he didn’t stop there. He’s also exploring Universal Basic Compute (UBC)—the idea that access to AI processing power could become a new form of economic equity. Instead of just handing out money, people could gain AI-driven resources that allow them to generate income in new ways.
And then there’s Worldcoin, his attempt to solve the identity verification problem in a world where AI-generated deepfakes make it harder to prove who’s real. While some criticize it as dystopian, the reality is that we will need a system to distinguish real humans from AI in the near future.
Say what you will about Altman, but out of all the major AI figures—Musk, Hassabis, LeCun, Sutskever, Hinton, Amodei, etc.—he’s the only one actively working on global economic solutions for an AI-driven future. That’s not just a CEO hyping his product; that’s someone with a clear social conscience.
Wouldn’t you rather have someone like him thinking about these problems now rather than waiting until AI job losses hit like a tidal wave?
James, you raise a great question about the future of websites, and I agree—owning your domain is critical. Platforms come and go, and dependency on them is risky. But the way we build websites is shifting.
You mentioned that AI hasn’t replaced existing tools but rather made them more important. That’s true for now, but history shows that when AI gets good enough, it doesn’t just enhance tools—it replaces them.
Take Affinity Photo, which is widely used by RapidWeaver users. Just today, it got its first machine learning plugin. This is how it starts: first, AI enhances workflows, then it automates repetitive tasks, and eventually, it reaches a point where full automation is the norm. We’ve already seen this happen with Photoshop’s Generative Fill, and it’s only a matter of time before AI-driven automation does the same for web development.
Would you still say “it would be an incredibly tedious process” to instruct an AI to build a website when AI coding agents are improving exponentially? Right now, AI-generated sites feel generic, but what about a model fine-tuned on your style, preferences, and past projects? Instead of tedious prompting, it might soon be as simple as:
“AI, build me a site with a modern, minimalist design, following accessibility standards, optimized for speed and SEO, using my uploaded assets and existing content strategy.”
It’s not about if AI will replace traditional site-building—it’s about how soon.
Have you tried any of the AI site builders beyond Wix ADI, like Framer AI or Devin AI?
Leaving politics aside, while delays can be frustrating, Stacks Pro’s success doesn’t depend solely on being the first to market. Many software tools have launched late yet thrived by offering unique solutions or superior execution. It is rumored that Stacks Pro will be released at Joe’s conference later this spring, which I hope holds true. Although I haven’t delved deep into the nuts & bolts of RM’s new offering, its pricing was somewhat off-putting.
Regarding AI innovation, a significant shift occurred as several tech titans and venture capitalists realigned their political stances due to concerns over censorship and control, especially related to AI and free speech. Nevertheless, AI innovation is globally diversified, and no single U.S. president can completely dictate its pace or direction—though they can influence it.
Still, many businesses seek more than just a ‘website’; they desire a unique presence that only human-driven differentials can provide. Despite AI’s rapid advancements, the unique insights, creativity, and personal touch that humans bring to technology remain irreplaceable. This human-driven innovation ensures that even in an automated future, standout digital experiences will prevail. As with every major technological shift—whether industrial, transportation, electrical, entertainment, or computing—jobs evolve. Bottom line for me…while concerned about AI’s impact on my grandchildren’s future, I believe new opportunities will arise, and we must prepare the next generations accordingly.
As a developer, I’m not worried about AI replacing coding—at least not yet. The biggest limitation is context. AI can generate code, but if you don’t fully understand what you’re asking for, it just gives you exactly that—nothing more.
You only get out of it what you already know. If you’re not a developer, you won’t get developer-level code. And even when it does produce something useful, modifying it often leads to issues.
I use AI daily, but not as a replacement for development—more as a debugging assistant. It’s great for diagnosing problems quickly, but it still has a long way to go before it can truly replace human developers.
At the end of the day, coding is about the human element. AI isn’t human, and it doesn’t interact with interfaces the way we do. It’s a leap forward, but it’s not taking over anytime soon.
Dave, you make very good points. And as an example of a software product that was late to market, I‘d cite Adobe InDesign. Aldus had launched PageMaker in 1985 and Quark Xpress followed in 1987. InDesign wasn’t released until the end of 1999. And there was a lot of scepticism about Adobe establishing itself in the page-layout market (besides which, everyone was focused on the web by then). InDesign really didn’t do much then that PageMaker wasn’t doing in the late 80s. Nonetheless, over the next decade it became the market leader. Affinity Publisher wasn’t launched until 2019. It was considerably underpowered compared to InDesign, but at a very competitive price point, and has won a lot of users (myself included). This is a story that has been going on for 40 years now.
There will be AI ‘say hi! and it’s all done’ web-builders, and there will continue to be Vue and React type frameworks for huge-scale web applications. Somewhere in the middle of the market there will also be a space for StacksPro, Elements, Blocs and others. That part of the market isn’t going to make anyone billionaires, but I suspect it’s going to pick-up again. LLMs make the development of stacks much easier, and there are still a lot of really interesting new web-standards to incorporate. And StacksPro launches into a community where there are already a lot of excellent mature offerings from Joe, Stuart, Andrew, Jannis, Jon at 1LD, Gary and others. That’s a big head-start over Elements.
So it seems al we need is… Stacks Pro 😉