Carol Merlo, 73, created her own website using AI tools. Her son, 41-year-old AI mentor Kevin Masterson, helped her with this, who suggested she ditch website builders and learn web coding.
Carol Merlo, 73, created her own website using AI tools. Her son, 41-year-old AI mentor Kevin Masterson, helped her with this, who suggested she ditch website builders and learn web coding.
According to Business Insider, Carol has been building websites since the dawn of the internet. She used WordPress, which she found difficult, and later switched to platforms like Wix and Weebly. However, she recently received a notice that the rates had increased and that she had to pay for two years at once, which prompted her to look for cheaper alternatives.
Kevin, who has been practicing vibecoding for a year and even won a hackathon with a friend he taught himself, suggested that his mother create a website from scratch.
“She was talking about building a website and didn’t want to rely on Weebly. I said, ‘Do you want to learn how to do it yourself? I can help you and I won’t type anything, I’ll just talk,’” Kevin recalls.
The training was mostly hands-on, with Kevin sitting in a room and Carol working at the computer. At first, the woman said, the process was unusual, because instead of dragging blocks like in a construction set, she had to describe the desired result in words.
The biggest challenge for Carol was the technical terminology and abbreviations. She admits that sometimes she had to use Claude's regular version to understand the meaning of the terms. In addition, the woman was initially afraid of making a mistake.
“I was hesitant to press ‘Enter.’ I’d say, ‘I typed this. Now what?’ And he’d say, ‘Press ‘Enter.’ He told me, ‘You won’t break anything and you can always go back to the original version.’ A lot of people are afraid of making mistakes, especially when they’re learning something new,” Carol said.
She currently uses a platform based on Claude Code, which costs her $9.99 per month. According to Carol, her site looks basic right now, but she is continuing to work on it.
"What Kevin taught me is that there are no limits. Anything you can imagine, you can ask Claude Code to do for you. I am no longer limited by knowledge; now I am only limited by my imagination," the woman emphasized.
We should add that the family uses various AI tools for everyday tasks: Carol uses ChatGPT to generate images and plant advice, Claude uses it to write texts, and her husband prefers Gemini.
