“Your own website with AI in minutes!” Just a few clicks and you’re online. It’s magic!

This or something similar is how many offers that want to sell AI-generated web design are currently advertised. But is it really that simple? And what do you get – as things stand today – from AI?

Let’s be clear: the advertising delivers what it promises!

This may come as a surprise – at least at first glance! It’s the classic advertising method: you are told what you get and what you don’t get. With AI, you actually get a website without having to know anything about technology – at least that’s the promise. This can be a solution if you just need a digital business card or want to announce a one-off event, for example.

The problem: these sites are based on templates that many others also use. The result? Your website looks like a thousand others – and will drown in a sea of randomness.

AI can only fail with an individual website, because a good website represents your company and must therefore be unmistakable. Not average, but tailor-made! This is the only way your website can contribute to branding. Branding is a lengthy process that AI cannot (yet) reproduce. There are several reasons for this.

The most important reason: A website alone hardly generates any traffic because it is difficult to find.

The AI does not ask who you want to address with your website or what deeper goals you are pursuing. But this is crucial for search engines like Google, as they are always looking for the best result for the respective search query. If your competitor has a website that is linked to services such as Google Business, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn and has numerous backlinks, their page will be displayed – whereas yours will not.

AI is also unable to integrate external services such as store systems, ordering systems or appointment calendars. So you need to be proactive here. Although you often only have to insert a code, not everyone is comfortable with this. In addition, the external services – whether with or without AI – must first be configured. It’s not magic!

What about the look?

If a company already has a corporate design, it is questionable whether this can also be implemented on an AI website. At the latest, if you want to add your own images or in-house typography, simplicity is a thing of the past. If you do without this, the recognizability is lost.

AI websites are generic – or, to put it another way: uninspired. Everything that makes human communication lively is reduced to standardized mush. An appropriate quote on the website, a graphic that explains a fact without words, customer reviews, texts with a concept – all of these can enrich a website. But only if you can integrate it. Anyone who has ever asked an AI to tell a self-invented joke knows that it has no sense of humor:

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“Tell me a joke you made up.”

ChatGPT:

Sure thing, pay attention:

Why can’t graphic designers cook?

Because they’re always bitching about the pan typography! 😄

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The unexpected, creative and entertaining is as inaccessible to AI as tax returns are to the average citizen. AI will probably never be able to create a “Helge Schneider moment”.

Conclusion:

You can quickly create a website with AI. However, if you want to customize it, you have just as much work as with a classic web editor – and you need the corresponding technical and general knowledge. From this point of view, you have gained nothing with AI when it comes to real web design. Anything that actually makes a website functional and useful can still only be achieved with hard work and inspiration. Google notices the difference – and so do your customers.

As a designer, I can’t compete with an AI web construction kit in terms of price. But I can still do everything else better than the machine! If you would like to rely on quality for your website, I look forward to hearing from you.