---
title: "Can an AI app builder make a useful tool over the holidays? This Week in WordPress 360"
date: 2026-01-05
author: "Courtney Robertson"
featured_image: "https://courtneyr.dev/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/this-week-in-wordpress-360-featured.jpg"
categories:
  - name: "WordPress"
    url: "/category/wptips.md"
  - name: "Speaking"
    url: "/category/speaking.md"
---

# Can an AI app builder make a useful tool over the holidays? This Week in WordPress 360

Can an AI app builder produce a useful tool over a holiday break? On the first This Week in WordPress of 2026, [Nathan Wrigley](https://wpbuilds.social/@nathan)colleague showed a link preview checker I’d built with GoDaddy’s Airo builder, and then I prompted it live to build an app for something Nathan needs every week: show titles.

## 🎙️ Episode details

- **Show:** This Week in WordPress 360, “We (I) failed to create an AI title for this episode,” from WP Builds
- **Host:** Nathan Wrigley
- **Panel:** [Taco Verdonschot](https://profiles.wordpress.org/tacoverdo/)colleague, [Mike Johnston](https://profiles.wordpress.org/wmjohnston06/)colleague and me, Courtney Robertson
- **Live:** Monday, January 5, 2026. The podcast followed on January 6.
- **Topics:** building tools with an AI app builder, and colliding dates for WordCamp Asia and PressConf
- **Show notes:** [This Week in WordPress 360 on WP Builds, with news links and a transcript](https://wpbuilds.com/2026/01/06/this-week-in-wordpress-360/)

 Captions and an interactive transcript are in the player controls (Transcript button).The captions are YouTube’s automatic captions, cleaned for repeated lines and names but not checked against the audio. WP Builds also publishes a full transcript on the show notes page.

## 🔗 A link preview checker, built with an AI app builder

I’d needed to check how a link would preview before sharing it, the card you see in a direct message or a social post. Plenty of tools already do that, but I built my own over the holidays with Airo, GoDaddy’s AI builder at airobuilder.godaddy.com, where I worked then.

## 🤖 Prompting the AI app builder live to title the show

While Nathan considered his options, I gave Airo, the same AI app builder, a prompt to build an app that generates catchier titles for his episodes. The episode’s actual title suggests how the AI title attempt went for the host.

## 📅 Event dates that collide

The panel also talked about WordCamp Asia and PressConf. For example, PressConf had checked WordCamp Asia’s dates to avoid a clash, then WordCamp Asia’s dates moved. I noted the audiences aren’t necessarily the same, but people like Taco and me would feel the conflict.

## 🧪 What can you take from this episode?

- **Builders:** a small personal tool is a good first test of an AI app builder.
- **Event organizers:** once you pick dates, tell the events you checked against.

Also, more conversations like this one live in [my podcast and speaking archive](https://courtneyr.dev/category/speaking/).

## 🗓️ Archival note

This panel streamed live on January 5, 2026, and WP Builds published it the next day. I added this post on November 9, 2026, from the publisher’s automated transcript. I reviewed the transcript, not the recording.





[](https://courtneyr.dev/2026/01/05/ai-app-builder-this-week-in-wordpress-360/)Courtney RobertsonCan an AI app builder make a useful tool over the holidays? This Week in WordPress 360