19 October 2026
News

Web agency in 2026: what AI has really changed in our work

In short

Since 2023, AI has cut the time spent on production tasks: first mockups, first drafts of copy, snippets of code, analysis.
In 2026, it moved into the tools themselves: Elementor launched an agent, and WordPress 7.0 opened its core to AI agents.
What it doesn’t do: understand your business, take responsibility for a website, and look after it over time. That’s where our job now really happens.

We get the question more and more often, sometimes with a smirk: “With AI around, what do we still need you for?” It’s a fair question. It deserves an honest answer, with facts rather than a sales pitch.

We’ve been building and maintaining websites since 2015, first in France and then in Montreal. Here’s what we’ve seen change, what AI actually does in our day-to-day work, and what it doesn’t.

Three years that sped everything up

At the end of 2022, ChatGPT led the way and conversational assistants started showing up in offices. For two years, they were mostly used for writing: an email, a product description, a first draft. Useful, but nothing that changed how websites were built.

In February 2025, researcher Andrej Karpathy coined a phrase that went around the world: vibe coding, the idea of building an app by describing what you want instead of writing the code yourself. Collins Dictionary named it word of the year in November. Meanwhile, tools like Lovable took off: the Swedish platform passed US$100 million in annual revenue eight months after launch, and it was valued at US$13.3 billion last August.

In 2026, AI moved into the tools we use every day:

March 2026: Elementor, the most widely used page builder on WordPress, launched Angie, an agent that can write and test custom features.
May 2026: WordPress 7.0 built AI right into its core, with building blocks that let AI agents read and modify a site.

In other words, the question is no longer “should we use AI?”. It’s already in the toolbox of everyone who builds websites.

What the numbers really say

Among developers, use is massive: according to Stack Overflow’s annual survey, 84% were using or planning to use AI tools in 2025. But trust isn’t keeping up: 46% distrusted the accuracy of the output, up from 31% a year earlier. In the 2026 edition, released in early October, only 20% of developers who use AI rely on it to deploy or run systems in production. It’s used a lot to produce, much less to run what has to work.

On the agency side, a WP Engine study published in April found that 63% of agencies are investing in AI tools and that, in 68% of cases, clients are the ones who raise the subject first.

And among Canadian businesses, the change is recent but fast. According to Statistics Canada, 19.2% of businesses used AI to produce goods or deliver services in the twelve months leading up to spring 2026, compared with 6.1% two years earlier: the rate has tripled. In Quebec, the Institut de la statistique du Québec measured 12.7% in 2025. Surveys on generative AI in the broader sense show higher numbers: 30% of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses use it according to BDC, and 52% of Quebec internet users had already tried it by fall 2025, according to the NETendances survey.

What AI does at our agency

We use it every day, and we don’t hide it. In practice:

First versions come together faster. A site structure, a first mockup, a base of copy to rework: what used to take a day sometimes takes an hour. The time saved goes into what matters, the substance and the details.
Custom code is more accessible. A specific feature for a client, a calculation, a connector between two tools: AI writes a first version, and we review it, test it and secure it.
Analysis is sharper. Cross-referencing Search Console data, spotting a page that’s slipping, comparing periods: AI helps us move faster through the numbers, and the decisions stay human.
Our clients benefit directly. Through our AI automation services (follow-ups, sorting inquiries, meeting summaries) and the modules of the HDKN app: an AI chatbot trained on their business, an AI receptionist, an article generator. Our chatbots clearly tell visitors they’re talking to an AI. Europe has required it since August 2, 2026, and it’s a matter of trust. In Quebec, Law 25 already requires businesses to inform people when a decision about them is made exclusively through automated processing.

One rule never changes: nothing goes live without being reviewed, checked and tested by someone on the team. Not a single line of copy, not a single line of code.

What AI doesn’t do

Understand your business

An AI can write “trusted contractor for 20 years” for anyone. It doesn’t know that most of your customers come from Laval and the South Shore, that your real strength is response time, or that your main competitor just cut prices. That understanding comes from talking with you, not from writing a prompt.

Take responsibility

When a site goes down on a Saturday morning, when a plugin opens a security hole, when an update breaks the contact form, someone has to answer. Accessibility, Law 25, security: these are responsibilities, not features.

Look after a website over time

This may be the deepest change. Building a website has never been faster. But a website nobody looks after degrades: outdated PHP and plugin versions, pages slipping on Google, aging content, new rules to apply. A site generated in ten minutes and then abandoned ends up costing more, after a year, than a well-built, well-maintained one.

What it changes in our work

The web agency job is shifting from building to steering. We spend less time producing and more time deciding, checking, measuring and improving. That’s why we built our offer around ongoing care: a maintenance plan where a webmaster takes care of your website every month, on top of website design.

AI hasn’t replaced web agencies. It has made the agency that just delivered a website and disappeared obsolete. And frankly, that’s good news for businesses.

Want to talk about it, or see what AI could automate in your business? Write to us.