A few years ago the honest answer was "yes, a lot". You learned HTML, then CSS, then JavaScript, then a framework, and months later you built your first real site. AI coding tools have changed that, but not in the way the adverts suggest.
The short answer: you don't need to know how to write code to start. You do need to learn how to read it a little, check it, and tell an AI exactly what to build. This guide explains why.
01What AI can build for you now
Tools like Cursor (a code editor with AI built in) and ChatGPT can write most of the code for a small-business website: the pages, the layout, the menu, the forms, even the parts that save information and send emails. You describe what you want in plain English, and the AI writes and edits the files.
For common things, they're very good. Menus, contact forms, booking pages and simple dashboards have been built millions of times, and the AI has seen them all.
02What AI can't do for you
- Know the business. The AI doesn't know your client's prices, opening hours or customers. Ask for "a website for a salon" and it will invent all of it.
- Decide what to build. Which pages, what they say, what the customer should do next: those are your decisions.
- Judge whether it's right. AI can be confidently wrong. It can say a form works when nothing is being saved.
- Keep things safe. Passwords, keys and customers' private details need care the AI won't always take on its own.
- Take responsibility. When the client's site breaks, they call you, not the AI.
AI writes the code. You decide what gets built, and you check that it works.
03Where beginners get stuck
AI tutorials usually stop at a pretty landing page. Real client websites need forms that save to a database, logins, emails and an admin page. That's the point where beginners who can't read any code get lost: something breaks, the AI's fixes make it worse, and they don't know where to look.
So the skill to aim for isn't "writing code". It's understanding enough to steer: knowing what the main files do, reading an error message, spotting when the AI changed something it shouldn't have, and asking for the right fix.
04How much code should you understand?
Enough to answer these questions about your own site:
- Which file holds this page, and which part holds this button?
- Where does the information from this form go?
- What does this error message say, in plain English?
- What did the AI just change, and was it what I asked for?
You can learn that a piece at a time, as you build, rather than before you start.
05Learn it by building
The Institution's course teaches web design this way: you build real sites with AI from the first weekend, and learn to read the code AI writes as you go. Module 4, Read the Code, and Module 5, Fixing Things, cover the parts this guide only names. Module 0 is free and explains how AI coding works, and what it can't do for you. If you're choosing between tools, read Cursor, ChatGPT or Claude? Which to use for what.
This guide comes from Module 0 of the course. The full course is GHS 399 ($40), paid once and yours to keep. Module 0 is free.