By Tom Ossa, CEO – RockWeb Systems Inc.
Note: This blog has been updated on 6/4/2026 at 4:35 pm. It was originally posted on April 23, 2024, at 11:00 am UTC. For the older version, please check Archive.org
When I started out in web development over 20 years ago, it was like the wild west.
There were no standards. Just a few name brand companies such as GoDaddy, Network Solutions and Macromedia (which Adobe bought), and a lot of noise on how to do things right.
In the early days, like any wild west atmosphere – it was a struggle. Along with a small 3-5 person team from 2008 to 2014, we found ourselves finding a variety of ways to do things the right way, and I aimed my companies to stick with the best practices.
But that doesn’t mean that our customers always bought into my concepts, or all of our good intentions.
Quite frankly, I left a LOT of money on the table (by my estimation, at least a few hundred thousand dollars), trying to educate the masses about the value of a web-built website at an affordable cost, hosting, SEO, and (ugh) email and social media). The ones that got it, took it, ran with it and succeeded. The ones that didn’t – well, they still used some of our ideas and waited for the Internet to catch up to accommodate them.
So, we trudged along. For about 15 years.
Think about this for a minute. 15 years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(Wait for it…)
Eventually, after those 15 years of hard labor and stress…we settled in and decided to focus on our best clients at RocklandWeb – big and small – and let the rest go. It was more peaceful.
Those name brand companies, and much of our custom web design processes, became more streamlined and to the point. The past three years (especially during COVID) we were able to – for lack of a better term – “commoditize” the basics of our process, and automate it. We set a price point, and adhered to the standards that we already knew were best practices.
And so guess what? The ones that stuck with us got us through the hard times, and now are beneficiaries of an amazing 15-person team at RockWeb Systems Inc. – ready for whatever the wild west may come at them next.
Well, ladies and gentlemen…the Wild West is back. Obviously in the form of Ai. (And for the rest of this article, I’ll be making the ‘i’ in ‘Ai’ a small ‘i’.
I’m probably preaching to the choir. But I do know, by the sheer fact of just the mention of the word “Ai” evoking some sort of emotion or opinion in your mind right now…that we’re in agreement.
You know that for almost 5 years we’ve been shamelessly using Ai to produce quality articles (over 6000 of them) on Rockland News. They’re all rooted in facts, and we personally train our systems to check for accuracy.
But now…we’re going to take what we learned as a consumer of Ai…and backchannel it into our web teams.
Ai as a Tool for Work Productivity
In the tech world, when a product becomes so common that it’s no longer a special advantage, it’s called “commoditization”. This is starting to happen with artificial intelligence (Ai), much like it happened with personal computers and websites. Initially, creating a website was a big deal, offering a significant edge over competitors. But as tools and platforms became more user-friendly and accessible, almost every business ended up with a website.
Today, having a website doesn’t set you apart—it’s just expected.
Ai is already a commodity. It took 15 years for us to say that websites these days are a commodity, but they are! Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify took care of that, much like Walmart and Target killed 90% of the bicycle shop industry in the 1990’s. But Ai got there much faster. By 2031, the consumer will be expected, in just about everything we do – to use some form of Ai.
Much like those early days of web development, I felt it was important to get in early – so that when ChatGPT, Claude, and other systems become the standard, you are in place to capitalize on them.
Enter Rockland.Ai.
You’re going to be seeing more from our team about this…including a very fun thing that we are working on behind the scenes – partially to be useful to our clients and our loyal fans over the years. But also partially to throw a big middle finger up at one particular individual (who will remain nameless in print, I promise) that I caught trying to act like he knew anything about a very important security protocol that anyone worth his salt should either know about, or defer to smarter people.
But before anything…first we wanted to raise the banner for what we will be using as part of our very fun and useful product, coming your way in 2027! So…remember the website domain Rockland.Ai – it’s main mission will be this: Help people to work smarter, not harder.
The vision I imagine for this is the computer on the Starship Enterprise. Keep that in mind.
The Current State of Ai
Remember this: Ai is simply a buzzword. It actually means nothing. It’s technology, rooted in literally 76 years of development, since the ARPANET of the US military was originally devised as a communication tool for the industro-military complex (you know…the one that Eisenhower tried to warn us about, and allowed us to maintain our vigilance on the Government, to an extent). In other words, the communication tools and technology that were being built under the hood are now available for all of us.
Scary? Yes.
Exciting? Hell yeah.
Smart move? We’ll see.
Simple Ai is also mega-affordable (or free), making it easy for any business or person to use. This shift means that Ai can literally make a complete website template in five minutes. Just as the early days of the internet brought e-commerce, which evolved from a luxury to a standard way of shopping, Ai has moved from being a buzzword to a regular part of business operations. Just like the words Internet, Web, Website, Email (ugh), and so many others that would make Xerox jealous.
Experts like Nicolas Carr and others from the Harvard Business Review suggest that while adoption of new Ai systems can give businesses a temporary edge, this advantage won’t last, as more companies adopt Ai. The key to standing out won’t just be about having Ai but how creatively it’s used.
In short: The real winners will be those who use Ai to innovate and improve their services or products uniquely.
And to that, I refer back to our project that we will be completing in early 2027. I hope those of you that read this treatise will appreciate the effort. It won’t be easy. But I hope you will personally find our efforts very useful!
I will say this: Today, many companies use Ai mainly to save time and money. I know I do for the benefit of our companies. However, its role is expanding, and soon, Ai will work quietly in the background, making businesses more efficient without much fanfare. This is similar to how, after the novelty wore off, websites became just another tool for business. They’re essential but not something that customers explicitly notice or businesses boast about. It’s just…there.
So, in conclusion – while it may seem like you just wasted 4.5 minutes of your life reading this, consider it more of a quick note to our friends who have been following our travels over the years. Remember the domain Rockland.Ai…and btw right now, our logo looks like this:
Final Thoughts
Just like websites that have become commoditized, the challenge for businesses and people won’t just be to use Ai, but to use it in innovative ways that truly make a difference. Especially when it fades out of daily view, and operates like the computer on the Starship Enterprise…and God willing, not malfunction like HAL from 2001 a Space Odyssey, or worse…become like Skynet from Terminator! More safe, secure and solid development is certainly required! The work has just begun.
But if my tea leaves are correct, what we are planning will be helpful for you when we roll it out, and possibly for a generation or two.
Either way, feel free to call us for a demo, when we launch, circa 2027!
~ Tom Ossa, CEO
RockWeb Systems Inc.
(845) 877-7333 ext. 701