Dave Hawkins joins the Somewhat Useful Podcast to Talk Practical AI for Client Work

Made by Dave founder Dave Hawkins joined Will Myers on the Somewhat Useful Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on practical AI for client work, sharing the studio with fellow Squarespace expert Becca Harpain of Inside the Square. The episode, streamed live on 5 May 2026, runs just over an hour and gets straight into how AI is genuinely shifting the day-to-day reality of running a web design studio.

A real conversation between three working designers

Hosted by Will Myers, the Somewhat Useful Podcast pulls back the curtain on what Squarespace designers, developers and small studios are actually doing right now. With co-host Christy Price out for the week, Will brought in two long-standing names in the Squarespace community to fill the seat. Becca Harpain of Inside the Square is one of the most recognised educators for Squarespace users, while Made by Dave has been building bespoke Squarespace websites since 2014 from its base in London.

The conversation is honest, unpolished in the best way, and refreshingly free of hype. Three people who build websites for a living, talking about what AI actually changes in their day, what it does not, and where the line sits between useful automation and lazy shortcuts.

Natural language as the new design interface

One of the threads Dave keeps coming back to in the episode is the idea that AI is collapsing the distance between describing something and seeing it. Designers already work in natural language every day, whether they are briefing clients, writing emails, or scoping projects. AI just turns that same language into a wireframe, a prototype or a working draft in seconds.

That shift matters because it changes where AI fits in the workflow. Sometimes it is the very first thing you reach for, a way to push past a blank canvas. Other times it sits at the end, helping to communicate an idea visually that would otherwise need a thousand words and a long client call. Either way, the conversation moves on from the tired “will AI replace designers” framing and into something far more useful, which is how to use it well.

How AI is reshaping client work for small studios

Becca shares how dramatically her workflow has shifted in the past two years, with more time now spent on content creation, education and consulting clients on their existing sites, alongside a steadier rhythm of around one new build a month. Dave talks through how the studio is using AI across discovery, content, prototyping and delivery, and where the team draws a deliberate line so that craft, taste and accountability stay firmly with humans.

There is also a candid moment about pace. Both guests acknowledge how often something genuinely new lands, with Anthropic shipping new Claude capabilities almost weekly, and how the job now includes filtering signal from noise on behalf of clients who do not have time to keep up.

Watch the full episode

If you run a studio, freelance, or are a Squarespace user trying to make sense of where AI fits into your client work, this is an hour well spent. The full episode of Somewhat Useful with Will Myers, Becca Harpain and Dave Hawkins is available on YouTube.