From Stack Overflow to ChatGPT: How I Built My First AI-Assisted Project

Part 1 of 3 in the series “How AI Changed the Way I Build Things” It Wasn’t Magic. It Was a Better Conversation. About two years ago, I paid for a ChatGPT subscription myself. My company wasn’t offering any AI tooling at the time, and that didn’t change until almost the end of 2025. I had this side project idea rattling around in my head, one of those itch-you-can’t-scratch problems, and I figured it was a decent excuse to try out this AI thing everyone was talking about.