Built by AI. Delivered by Design. The April 2026 Fishing Report.
We rebuilt the Lakefish Group website and this newsletter using AI in under 48 hours. Claude just launched something big. The right AI tool depends on the person, not the company. And your team is already using AI. The only question is whether it is safe.
We Rebuilt Our Website and This Newsletter Using AI. Here Is What That Actually Cost Us.
You may have noticed things look a little different around here. This month's newsletter is a little late, and we want to be upfront about why. We spent the last few weeks doing a full redesign of the Lakefish Group website and rebuilding this newsletter template from the ground up. Not because something was broken. Because we wanted everything to be consistent, on brand, and built the right way before we sent another issue.
Here is the part worth paying attention to: we did both using AI. The website redesign took less than a day. The newsletter template took a few hours. And the total cost was a fraction of what we would have paid a traditional designer or agency.
We are not saying that to brag. We are saying it because it is exactly what we teach in our workshops. AI is not just a writing tool. It is a creative partner. When you bring it a clear vision, real assets, and honest feedback, it delivers real results. What made it work was not just typing a prompt and walking away. We had a conversation with the AI. We described our brand, our audience, our goals. We shared our logo, our colors, our voice. We pushed back when something felt off. We asked for changes. And we kept refining until it was right.
The result is what you are reading right now. A fresh template. A cleaner site. And a process we can repeat for every client we work with. The new website includes a full speaking and workshop page, a past engagements section with verified results from real events, a blog, and a team page. Every section was built with the same AI-assisted workflow. Every piece of copy was refined through conversation, not just generated and accepted.
For context, a website redesign like this from a traditional agency would typically run between $8,000 and $25,000 and take four to eight weeks. A custom newsletter template from a designer would cost $1,500 to $3,000 and take one to two weeks. We did both in under 48 hours total, and the output is something we are genuinely proud of.
This is not a story about replacing designers or agencies. It is a story about what is now possible when you know how to use the tools. The leaders and teams who learn this skill are going to have a serious competitive advantage over the ones who do not. That is what Lakefish Group is here to help you build.
Claude Just Dropped Something Big. And It Changes What Non-Designers Can Do.
On April 17, Anthropic launched Claude Design. And if you are not a designer, this one is for you. Claude Design is a new tool that lets you describe what you need visually and get a real, polished result back. Not a rough sketch. Not a template with your logo slapped on it. An actual design. Prototypes, pitch decks, one-pagers, marketing assets, landing pages, and more.
Here is what makes it different from other AI design tools. Claude Design is built around your brand. During setup, it reads your existing files and design assets, then builds a system around your colors, fonts, and style. Every project after that automatically matches your brand. No more off-brand outputs. No more explaining your brand guidelines from scratch every time.
It also connects directly to Claude Code, which means a design you build in Claude Design can be handed off to Claude Code for development with a single instruction. That is a workflow that used to require a designer, a developer, and several rounds of back and forth. Now it can happen in one conversation.
Teams are already using it for turning rough ideas into interactive prototypes before leaving the meeting room, building pitch decks from a bullet-point outline in minutes, creating social assets and landing pages without waiting on a creative team, and generating on-brand marketing materials for events and campaigns.
Claude Design is available now for Claude Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers at claude.ai/design. Anthropic also launched Claude Opus 4.7 the same week, their most capable model to date, with significant improvements in reasoning, nuanced writing, and handling complex multi-step tasks.
This is a big week for Anthropic. And a big week for anyone who has ever said 'I am not a designer' as a reason not to create something. The barrier just got a lot lower. The only question now is whether your team is ready to take advantage of it.
Stop Asking Which AI Tool Should We Use. Start Asking Which Tool for Which Person.
The question we hear most in workshops is still 'which AI tool should we be using?' It is the wrong question. The right question is: which tool is best for which person on your team, doing which type of work? AI is no longer one-size-fits-all. The landscape has matured. Different platforms are genuinely better at different things. And the teams getting the most value from AI are the ones who have stopped treating it like a single tool and started treating it like a toolkit.
ChatGPT from OpenAI is the most versatile. It is strong across writing, research, coding, and image generation, and integrates with more third-party tools than any other platform. Best for general use, research, content creation, and coding.
Claude from Anthropic is the strongest for long-form writing, nuanced communication, and careful reasoning. Claude Design now adds visual creation to the list. Best for writing, proposals, analysis, brand design, and complex reasoning.
Gemini from Google is a natural fit for teams in Google Workspace. It connects directly to Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Sheets, removing the copy-paste step entirely. Best for Google Workspace users, email drafting, and document summarization.
Microsoft Copilot lives inside Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams. For organizations on Microsoft 365, it is often the most practical starting point. Best for Microsoft 365 users, spreadsheets, presentations, and email.
The practical approach is to start with one tool for your team and get everyone comfortable with the basics. Then, as your team's skills grow, introduce the idea of matching the tool to the task. A writer might gravitate toward Claude. A data analyst might prefer ChatGPT with Code Interpreter. A sales team in Google Workspace might get the most value from Gemini. That is not confusion. That is maturity.
Your Team Is Already Using AI. The Only Question Is Whether It Is Safe.
Here is something most leaders do not want to hear: if you have not given your team an approved AI tool, they are already using one on their own. A recent study found that 90 percent of employees use AI at work. Of those, 60 percent are using personal accounts. That gap is not a technology problem. It is a policy problem.
When your employees use a personal ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini account to do work tasks, they are likely feeding your company data into a model that uses it for training. Client names. Internal strategies. Financial details. Proprietary processes. All of it potentially going into the model's training data.
The good news is that this is a solvable problem. The key distinction is this: personal accounts and business accounts are not the same thing. With a personal ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, or Gemini Advanced account, your data is typically used for training by default. You can opt out, but most people never do.
With a business account, the rules change completely. ChatGPT Team, Claude Team, and Gemini for Workspace all have training on your data turned off by default. Your conversations are contractually protected. Your data stays private. The model does not learn from what your employees type. That is a fundamentally different level of protection.
The cost difference is small. ChatGPT Team runs about $25 to $30 per user per month. Claude Team is similar. Gemini for Workspace is often included in your existing Google subscription. For most organizations, the switch costs less than a few hundred dollars a month. Compare that to the potential cost of a data breach, a client relationship damaged by leaked information, or a regulatory fine.
The leaders who say 'we are not ready to adopt AI' are often the same leaders whose teams are already using it every day on personal accounts with no guardrails. That is not caution. That is exposure. If you want help building an AI policy for your team, or running a session to get everyone on the same page, reach out. It is one of the most valuable things you can do for your organization right now.
Ready to Bring AI to Your Team?
Whether you want hands-on workshops that make AI immediately useful, or strategic help building an AI policy for your organization, Lakefish Group is here to help. Book Jon for a keynote or workshop and give your team the practical skills they need to move forward with confidence.
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Jon Lakefish
Jon Lakefish is one of North America's most sought-after AI keynote speakers and workshop facilitators and is available for events worldwide. He helps business teams cut through the hype and leave with practical AI tools they can use immediately.