Seattle AI Consultant

Tag: content management

  • The Rise of AI in Seattle: 5 Startups to Watch in 2025

    The Rise of AI in Seattle: 5 Startups to Watch in 2025

    Seattle is rapidly emerging as a hub for artificial intelligence (AI) jobs. The Emerald City’s unique blend of tech talent, innovation, and proximity to cloud computing giants has made it a magnet for AI companies. This growth is evident in the rising number of startups securing venture funding to bring cutting-edge technologies to market. Below, we’ll explore five AI startups in the Seattle area that received significant funding recently, highlighting their innovative solutions and competitive advantages.

    1. Read AI: Revolutionizing Meetings

    Read AI specializes in enhancing virtual meetings through its AI-powered tools. Its core product provides real-time meeting analysis and automated summarization, designed to help teams stay focused and efficient. By leveraging natural language processing and sentiment analysis, Read AI’s technology can assess engagement levels, generate actionable insights, and summarize key takeaways in seconds.

    The startup’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate with popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. This compatibility makes Read AI an essential tool for businesses that rely on remote collaboration. The $21 million Series A funding it secured in April 2024, led by Goodwater Capital, will be used to scale operations and refine its algorithms for even greater accuracy.

    2. Gradial: AI-Powered Content Transformation

    Gradial focuses on using generative AI to help businesses maintain up-to-date digital content. Its flagship product enables companies to automatically refresh and optimize their website content to align with evolving customer needs and SEO trends. The tool also provides creative recommendations to enhance user engagement, offering a seamless way for organizations to modernize their online presence.

    Gradial’s competitive edge lies in its emphasis on personalization and scalability. By integrating generative AI with advanced analytics, the platform helps businesses of all sizes adapt quickly to market changes without sacrificing quality. With $5.4 million in seed funding from Madrona in February 2024, Gradial is poised to expand its team and refine its product offerings for broader adoption.

    3. PreemptiveAI: Transforming Healthcare Diagnostics

    PreemptiveAI is at the forefront of healthcare innovation, offering real-time diagnostic solutions powered by AI. Its system analyzes patient data to detect potential health risks early, enabling providers to intervene proactively. By utilizing machine learning algorithms trained on large datasets, PreemptiveAI delivers high accuracy in predicting outcomes and personalizing treatment plans.

    The company’s competitive advantage is its focus on speed and precision, addressing a critical gap in healthcare diagnostics. Its platform reduces the time and costs associated with traditional diagnostic methods while improving patient outcomes. After raising $6.4 million in seed funding in March 2024, PreemptiveAI plans to expand its capabilities to cover a broader range of conditions and deploy its technology in more healthcare settings.

    4. Enzzo: Simplifying Hardware Development

    Enzzo operates in the AI-driven hardware development space, providing tools to streamline product design and manufacturing. Its platform leverages AI to optimize prototypes, predict performance issues, and improve overall efficiency in the development lifecycle. This approach reduces time-to-market for hardware products and minimizes costly errors during production.

    Enzzo’s competitive strength lies in its ability to democratize hardware innovation, making advanced tools accessible to startups and small businesses. With $3 million in seed funding from Unlock Venture Partners in March 2024, the company aims to expand its engineering team and enhance its platform’s AI capabilities, empowering more creators to bring their ideas to life.

    5. Healionics: AI Meets Medical Devices

    Healionics is innovating in the medical device sector by developing artificial blood vessels for dialysis patients. Its flagship product, STARgraft, utilizes AI-enhanced designs to mimic natural blood vessels, reducing complications such as infections and clotting. These features make Healionics’ products a game-changer for patients undergoing long-term dialysis.

    The startup’s competitive edge is its combination of cutting-edge material science and AI-powered design, which allows for highly customized solutions. With $5.5 million in funding secured in February 2024, Healionics is focused on advancing its product through human trials and exploring additional applications for its technology in other areas of medicine.

    Final Thoughts

    Seattle’s vibrant tech ecosystem, supported by an abundance of talent, strong venture funding, and proximity to cloud leaders, has made it a thriving hub for AI innovation. While challenges like high living costs remain, the opportunities for AI professionals and companies in Seattle are unparalleled. For job seekers, investing in skills relevant to AI and connecting with innovative startups like the ones above can open doors to exciting, high-paying roles in this rapidly growing industry.

  • From Blog Builder to Business Backbone? The Rise and Limits of WordPress in the No-Code Era

    From Blog Builder to Business Backbone? The Rise and Limits of WordPress in the No-Code Era

    When we talk about no-code development today, the conversation quickly turns to platforms like Bubble, Webflow, and Make. But long before these tools emerged, one name quietly led the charge in democratizing website creation: WordPress.

    WordPress launched in 2003 as a blogging tool. Over time, thanks to its open-source roots and plugin-based architecture, it became a popular platform for everything from personal blogs to small business websites. For a long stretch in the 2000s and early 2010s, WordPress was the web—powering over 40% of websites online by the mid-2020s.

    I find this fascinating because, in many ways, WordPress was the original no-code tool. It allowed non-programmers to spin up websites using themes, plug in functionality like shopping carts or contact forms, and manage content without writing a single line of code. The ecosystem was rich with plugins like Elementor (a visual page builder), WooCommerce (for e-commerce), and Advanced Custom Fields (for structured content). The result? Tens of millions of people, many with no technical background, were able to publish and grow their digital presence.

    But as the no-code movement gained steam—particularly around 2018 and beyond—WordPress started to feel… stuck. While newer platforms were being built from the ground up for visual programming, integrations, and automation, WordPress was still tethered to its blogging legacy and PHP-based architecture.

    Let’s unpack this a bit.

    WordPress: A Pioneering No-Code Platform

    The original no-code promise of WordPress was empowering. Entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits—you name it—could launch a web presence cheaply and quickly. Page builder plugins like Divi, Beaver Builder, and Elementor extended its no-code reach by offering visual drag-and-drop editing. Services like WP Engine and Bluehost made deployment easier than ever.

    For many years, this was enough. And to be clear, it still is—for the right use case. WordPress remains an excellent platform for simple landing pages, personal blogs, and content-focused websites. In fact, this very site is built on WordPress because my goal is to manage blog content quickly and easily without unnecessary overhead.

    Some clients also prefer WordPress for its familiarity and ease of use, and when that’s the case, my no-code app development consultancy is happy to recommend it. It’s still one of the best tools out there for fast, content-first publishing.

    Where WordPress Falls Short for Sophisticated Applications

    That said, today’s businesses often want more than a static site or content platform. They want dashboards. Internal tools. Multi-user portals. Smart workflows that span email, CRM, databases, and AI integrations. And this is where WordPress starts to show its age:

    • Plugin overload: Achieving complex functionality often means stitching together a dozen or more plugins, each with its own settings and compatibility quirks. It’s like building a car from parts that weren’t made to work together.
    • Scalability issues: WordPress wasn’t designed as a platform for dynamic applications with real-time data or advanced logic. The more custom you get, the more you bump into performance ceilings—or require a developer to hack your way out.
    • Limited logic and automation: Unlike tools like Make, Bubble, or Retool, WordPress doesn’t offer native automation, data pipelines, or visual logic flows. You’re on your own integrating with APIs unless you install yet another plugin—or hire a PHP developer.
    • Security concerns: With so many third-party plugins and themes, WordPress sites are frequent targets for bots and exploits. For business-critical apps, this can be a dealbreaker.

    The New Frontier of No-Code

    If WordPress was the first wave, the new generation of no-code tools is the tsunami. Platforms like Bubble allow you to build full web apps with database-backed logic. Tools like Make and Zapier let you automate operations between platforms with ease. And increasingly, AI is joining the party, letting users describe an app in plain English and receive working prototypes in minutes.

    WordPress still holds value. It’s a reliable, flexible choice for clients who want something familiar, fast, and simple. But if you’re building a truly custom application for your business, it may not be the best fit.

    My Takeaway

    As someone who helps small businesses leverage AI and automation, I often see clients start with WordPress out of habit. But when we dig into their actual needs—custom forms, database logic, user accounts, automation—it becomes clear they’ve outgrown what WordPress is really good at.

    That’s when we start exploring more modern no-code or low-code platforms. WordPress helped bring no-code into the mainstream. But for today’s business apps? It’s often just the beginning of the journey.

  • Why Writing for Business Still Matters—Even in the Age of AI

    Why Writing for Business Still Matters—Even in the Age of AI

    When I first started writing content for Seattle-area professionals and small businesses, I thought I had it all figured out. I had excelled in English during college and grad school, and I was working as a technical writer at Microsoft. Writing was my thing—how hard could it be to write for local businesses?

    Turns out, a lot harder than I expected.

    Writing for business isn’t just about being good with words. It’s about capturing the voice of your client in a way that feels authentic and elevated at the same time. That takes time. Years, in fact. And with all due respect to the clients I worked with in the early days of my freelance career—thank you for your patience while I figured that out.

    What makes this kind of writing so tricky is the listening. To write well for someone else, I have to get to know them: their voice, their story, their values, the language they naturally use when they talk about their work. This isn’t something you can fully capture through a generic intake form. That’s why I still meet with clients one-on-one—whether in person at a Seattle coffee shop, on Zoom, or over the phone. Those conversations give me the raw material to write something that actually sounds like them, not like ChatGPT’s best guess at what a CEO should sound like.

    Now that I work as an AI consultant through my firm, Avanzar, I often get asked if AI can replace a skilled writer. The answer? Not even close. AI can help you write faster, sure—but only if you already know what you’re doing. If you don’t have a solid understanding of your subject matter or a good ear for language, you’ll just end up with fluff. Generic, lifeless content. The kind of writing that sounds like it was written by a bot. Because it was.

    But in the hands of an experienced writer, AI is a golden goose. Not just because it lays golden eggs (fast drafts, sharper headlines, repurposed content in seconds), but because it keeps laying them—consistently, reliably, and with surprisingly little overhead. It can transform a writing process that once took 10 hours into one that takes two. And that time savings means I can do more for my clients, more affordably, and with no dip in quality.

    Here’s a concrete example: I recently worked with a regional logistics company that had no online content strategy at all—just a static homepage and a contact form. I helped them build a lightweight content management system that fit their needs, then used AI to accelerate the production of blog articles that boosted their discoverability on Google. To make the content stand out, I interviewed the CEO personally—several times—to capture their vision for the industry, their long-term priorities, and the unique ways they were navigating supply chain challenges. We turned those insights into thoughtful, forward-looking articles that positioned the company as a leader in their space.

    Some companies might turn to an internal comms specialist or a PR agency to do the same thing, and that’s a valid approach. But those teams are often stretched thin. That’s where I come in. I build AI-powered systems that support internal teams, automate parts of the content workflow, and enhance what your staff is already doing.

    So no, AI won’t replace the art of good writing. But it can make great writing more accessible, more efficient, and more powerful—if you know how to use it. That’s the sweet spot where I work.