Article Outline:
Lately we keep hearing versions of the same question from Catholic leaders: Now that AI can write code, do we still need to hire a technology team?
If you already have a sharp technical person on staff, couldn’t they build what you need with AI and save your organization the expense?
These are completely fair questions, and we want to give you honest answers.
AI tools can get a non-expert surprisingly far. A sharp person with no engineering background can build something real now. Just imagine those same tools in the hands of someone who has spent a decade doing this professionally! AI has raised the floor, and it has raised the ceiling too. The gap between those two outcomes is bigger than it has ever been.
The trouble is that AI, left to its own devices, doesn’t flag things it wasn’t asked about. Security, scalability, performance, maintainability, cost optimization, and even just general product quality—those won’t be addressed unless you know what to look for. And knowing is a big part of the job.
Let’s start with what is true:
AI can get you from concept to product faster and cheaper than ever. Technology is now more accessible, and new tools make it possible to do more with less.
For an organization with a big mission and a small budget, that is great news—and it is exactly why so many Catholic leaders are asking whether AI changes the math on building their own software. You care about stewardship, so we’d be surprised if you weren’t asking these questions!
In all the excitement, it’s easy to start believing things that aren't true. For example, that AI can build the software equivalent of a cathedral without an architect at the helm. That development costs should suddenly be negligible. That AI will keep scalability and cost optimization in mind. Or that you can expect a DIY app to magically keep itself updated in compliance with changing Apple and Android policies.
This post explores this changing landscape, laying out where AI is useful and where it may not be as you build technology for your mission.
Yes and no. Like any tool, what AI is worth depends entirely on who's holding it and what they know. Here are three things people often forget when asking whether they should use AI:
Some costs really have come down. We are not going to pretend otherwise. A skilled developer who uses these tools well gets more done in a day than anyone could have imagined a few years ago.
But if AI raises the ceiling for one capable person, it raises the ceiling for an experienced team even more. We have spent more than a decade building technology for Catholic organizations of every size. These AI tools build on that foundation rather than erasing it.
So if, for example, you’re looking to build your own branded app to host your Catholic content, the fair comparison is not your team with AI against our team doing things “the slow old way.” It is your team with AI compared to our team with AI, plus all the experience we accumulated before any of these tools showed up.
Picture a marathon. The 5 Stones technology team is twenty miles in. We know the route, the mistakes to watch for, and the techniques that will get you to the finish line. Then everyone gets faster shoes, including your team back at the starting line. Faster shoes are wonderful, but they don't move the starting line. And when everyone has the same advantage, it’s no longer an edge.
When the power drill arrived, it did not turn everyone into a carpenter. It made experienced carpenters faster and gave inexperienced people who wanted to pretend they were carpenters a quicker way to make expensive mistakes. The tool changed the speed of the work. It did not eliminate the skill required to do the work well.
Want to tinker around and create something for your personal use? Go for it. Planning to DIY something your organization will rely on long term? Not a great idea.
A factory can stamp out a flat-pack bookshelf in minutes. A craftsman with a chisel makes the kind of thing a family keeps for fifty years. AI can produce the surface-level version of almost anything right now. Building something secure, durable, and genuinely fitted to your mission still rests on human judgment.
Software is no different. Hand the same project to a seasoned developer and to a beginner, and what each one builds will not be remotely alike.
None of this is a knock on your team. A capable person with good tools can do real, valuable work! But no tool can substitute for experience in a craft. So unless your internal tech team has been building Catholic content-delivery apps for over a decade, you’ll still want to call Annunciate when you’re looking to create your own branded platform.
Anyone can nail two boards together. Not everyone can build a choir loft that won't come crashing down when the whole parish packs into the church on Christmas Eve.
Software is full of choir lofts: load-bearing decisions that look simple from the pews. One of the most important parts of building good software is knowing how to design your investment so it will last.
Ask someone without much experience what a piece of software needs to do, and you will usually get a long list of shallow requirements. A few that actually matter will go unmentioned—requirements that would have changed the shape of the whole build.
It takes an experienced engineer to know which questions to ask at this stage, see what is going to break before it happens, plan for future needs nobody thought to bring up, and design something that can grow as you grow. That is the real craft. The code is just the part you can see.
AI is a genuinely good executor. Point it at a clearly defined problem, and it will help solve it quickly. On its own, though, it does not carry the long view, the architecture, the trade-offs, or the judgment about what your organization will actually need two years from now. If you were building something meant to last, you would not just want the cheapest person who can lay bricks quickly. You would want an architect.
AI can’t replace expertise, but it can multiply it. Let our professional team put these tools to work for you.
For Catholic leaders, questions of when and how to use AI take on an added theological dimension. Thankfully, Mother Church is on top of things!
In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. The Holy Father does not treat AI as an enemy. He presents it as a tool that can help heal, connect, and educate—or divide and generate new forms of injustice—depending on how we use it.
The Holy Father calls us to act like Nehemiah, “placing God at the forefront of our actions and the human person at the center of our choices” (§16). We are to “lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace” (§15).
For a Catholic organization deciding how to build its technology, that reframes the whole question. It is not only “can AI build it?” but also “does the way we build honor the human person and their gifts?”
Putting your technology in the hands of seasoned experts who care about your mission is not the nostalgic option. In many cases, it is most in step with what the Church is asking of us and will produce the best results.
None of this is meant to talk you out of using AI internally. It can be a real gift that helps you do good work!
But if you’re thinking it will replace a team of experts, think again. AI changes the speed of the work, not the skill it requires. A faster tool is still just a tool. It’s the expertise that makes it worth anything.
Still unsure whether building in-house or partnering with our team makes more sense for your organization? Schedule a no-commitment consultation. We want what’s best for your organization, so we are happy to run the numbers and help you figure out the best way forward. 5 Stones will be praying for your mission either way!
