The Ping-Pong Architecture: How I Built AI for Busy Humans

The Ping‑Pong Workflow Behind AI for Busy Humans

Building a website used to feel like a solitary construction project. You’d open a blank CMS, stare at the cursor, and hope the “About” page didn’t read like a tax form. But with my latest project, AI for Busy Humans, the process felt less like construction and more like a fast-paced game of ping-pong.

Not just me and an AI — but a three-way volley between Gemini, Copilot, and the part of my brain that still remembers how Hugo templates work. (OK, that last bit is slightly untrue: Copilot actually suggested using Hugo and walked me through the setup, including the first batch of pages that would later be refined.)

---

The Three-Way Volley

The workflow settled into a rhythm pretty quickly: draft, refactor, rethink, repeat.

• The Strategy (Gemini): This is where the “Busy Human Framework” took shape. I’d throw a half‑formed idea across the table, and Gemini would return it with structure, hierarchy, and a sitemap that actually made sense.
• The Execution (Copilot + Hugo): Once the architecture felt right, I’d move into my local environment. Hugo handled the speed; Copilot handled the tedium — front matter cleanup, template nudges, Markdown scaffolding, and the occasional “why isn’t this partial rendering” rescue.
• The Filter (Me): My job was to referee. If something felt too corporate, too clever, or too far from the Hugo logic, I’d redirect the play. The site only works because every idea passed through that filter.

Architecture Through Conversation

We didn’t “build” the site so much as talk it into existence. There’s a strange kind of magic in saying:

“What if the navigation felt less like a menu and more like a roadmap?”

…and watching the structure shift in real time.

The ping‑pong method eliminated blank‑page syndrome entirely. I was never starting from zero — I was always responding to a serve. By the time I touched a line of code, the idea had already been shaped, challenged, and clarified.

Observations From the Baseline

The biggest lesson? AI isn’t a replacement for the creator. It’s the sparring partner that keeps you moving, keeps you honest, and keeps the work from stalling out.

AI for Busy Humans is live now, but the real story is how it got there — one volley at a time, bouncing between models until the noise settled into a signal.

Stay busy (but efficiently). And if you want a simple place to start, aiforbusyhumans.com is waiting!