Practical uses are growing as AI gets better

Building a website, writing whole books — people are putting AI to use on bigger projects as new models become more powerful

Author

Mignon Fogarty
January 09, 2026

Issue 100

Today’s newsletter is shorter than normal, because I’m caring for a sick relative and am desperately behind on my reading, but I have a few detailed “how-to” stories I want to get to you quickly.

Making a website with AI

Back in August, I made a personal website using Claude Code and was happy with the experience. I never launched it because I didn’t want AI to write any of the copy on the site, and I never got around to doing the writing myself, but the design was solid.

The formatting I needed was pretty advanced — I had spent 20 to 30 hours looking for a template without finding anything that fit — and Claude Code generated exactly what I wanted in ~30 minutes with six rounds of iteration. I felt like the design was pretty basic though. Ideally, I would have wanted something slicker, but what I got was 100% functional:

But what makes me want to get this out to you now is that I’ve been hearing Claude Code has dramatically improved since the release of the Opus 4.5 model, and Casey Newton just published a piece describing how he made a personal website with it — and the design looks fancier than the basic site I got out over the summer. It includes more dynamic elements like a blog and his most recent social media posts.

So I think if you want to build a website, AI is now fully up to the task.

How to get rid of the Gemini button in Chrome

If you don’t like the new Gemini button taking up your tab space in Chrome, you can get rid of it by right clicking and tapping “unpin.”

Quick Hits

My favorite reads this week

In Ukraine, an Arsenal of Killer A.I. Drones Is Being Born in War Against Russia [A fascinating in-depth look at autonomous military drones] — New York Times

Using AI

Christopher Penn describes how he’s using AI to write his next book. [There’s also an interesting comment from someone who describes using AI to write a mystery novel.] — LinkedIn

How to Write a Trashy Romance Novel with AI [I believe it’s important to understand the cutting edge of what people are doing with AI writing, but if you’re a fiction writer, this will likely piss you off, and I don’t blame you. Try to remember he’s talking about low-quality books, #NotAllRomanceNovels, and it’s also meant to be a model for any large writing project.] — Christopher Penn, LinkedIn

The Field Guide to AI Slop [A good overview of the little things that can add up to make something feel like it was written by AI] — Charlie Guo

Bad Stuff

Companions

Climate & Energy

I’m laughing

AI that writes police reports from body camera footage says suspect turned into a frog after seeing ‘The Princess and the Frog’ in the background [I felt like I could have just as easily filed this as “Bad Stuff.”] — FOX 13 Salt Lake City

Science & Medicine

Job market

Other

How AIs keep you chatting — The Atlantic

What is AI Sidequest?

Are you interested in the intersection of AI with language, writing, and culture? With maybe a little consumer business thrown in? Then you’re in the right place!

I’m Mignon Fogarty: I’ve been writing about language for almost 20 years and was the chair of media entrepreneurship in the School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. I became interested in AI back in 2022 when articles about large language models started flooding my Google alerts. AI Sidequest is where I write about stories I find interesting. I hope you find them interesting too.

If you loved the newsletter, share your favorite part on social media and tag me so I can engage! [LinkedIn — Facebook — Mastodon]

Written by a human