These days, almost everyone interacts with AI in some way or another and it’s become very much part of our daily routines from search engines, smartphones, digital assistants, chatbots to text editors and autocomplete in emails.
Now, it’s even starting to reshape how websites are created with many of the well-known hosted CMS providers currently available on the market all now featuring some level of AI building technology, eg, WordPress, GoDaddy, Divi, Wix, Squarespace, Hostinger, etc.
In this post, we explore how WordPress.com’s new AI Site Builder can help users create a polished site in minutes – and whether it’s the right tool for you.
The Future of Website Design?
For this example, we worked on a website for a made-up company called ‘Paula’s Pet Care Services’:
Step 1:
Step 2:
Step 3:
Within minutes, AI has generated the structure of the website and input placeholder text and images customised to the theme of the site we shared.
Step 4:
AI then offers us the chance to change various elements such as the layout, colour schemes, images and text.
Step 5:
In just a few steps, AI created a basic concept for a new website with a standard website layout from homepage to about, services and contact page.
After this, it is handed over to the user to make tweaks if they want, from the layout, colour schemes, through other suggested palettes, and if you already have hex codes or colours for your brand, you can add these too. AI generates most of the pictures, and if you don’t like any of them or the text, it’s easy to update by simply clicking and changing them.
So when it comes to building a site with AI, we asked:
1.How usable is it really?
The AI tool is very easy to use. Through a minimalist dashboard with a simple box and a suggested question to get you started, you only need to share a few prompts, and then it appears.
The tool is great for setting up a new site quickly, with a basic layout and page structure. If it is something simple you are after, such as a website for basic online presence to display who you are, what you do, and how clients can get in touch with you, then it’s great.
AI presented some pretty workable templates and colour combinations and options to change these quite easily, and if you already have your own brand colours or fonts, you can easily pop these in for further customisation too!
2. Does it add benefits?
If you are looking to get set up quickly, then the main benefits of this tool are ease and time. It can also help give an idea of layouts and ways to display content providing inspiration on design and where and how to display information for your site.
The result? a simple, professional result that is pretty close to a professionally-made site.
3. Will it really save time designing your website?
For basic websites where the main purpose is to display service information and does not require a lot of additional features or customisations, then yes, it can save you time designing a website and is a good start to get set up quickly.
4. Will it do some base content, even if it’s just good enough to get a site up and running with some starter content?
As shown in the example for Paula’s Pet Care business, AI was able to generate not only the structure and design of the website, but also images and text headings, and captions that corresponded with the business so it offers some great starter content – even if it is not entirely correct, it is easy to change when clicked on after, and can also provide an idea of content and ways to display information, overall.
Summary
For people unfamiliar with designing websites, the AI website tool is a great start for a basic website; although if you need more advanced features and customisations such as the ability to take payments through the website, displaying events or a booking system, you may need to spend further time on the site or get extra support from a developer or designer.
However, if you are looking for something that looks relatively polished and professional and to display a simple online presence in a short space of time, it’s a great, cost-effective, and time-saving start to your online journey.
Overall for anyone, whether they be a customer, designer or developer, in our opinion it would make sense to have AI set up the basic foundations of a website, saving time on what potentially are the basic steps and beginning process for most websites; such as setting out the page structure and layouts, therefore allowing owners, designers and developers time to focus more on the personalisation and customisation of features for the functionality of the site, enabling them the time to focus on what matters most for the customer and is aligned with their business goals.