Can AI build a website for my business?

By Kai M, Deliberate Design.

The short answer: AI can write the words, suggest a layout and generate the code for a page. It cannot register your domain, host the page, take your photos, or know that your prices went up in March. Used well it cuts the cost of the build. Used alone it gives you a page that does not exist anywhere.

What it does well

• First draft of the words, if you tell it what you actually do
• Rewriting your own notes into plain sentences
• Producing the code for a simple page in seconds
• Answering "what should my page have on it"

Where it goes wrong

• It invents things. Opening hours, awards, "since 1987". Check every line
• It writes the same way for everyone, so the page sounds like every other AI page
• It produces a file. Making the file a website still needs hosting, a domain and the padlock
• It cannot keep it up to date for you

What we do

We use the same tools in the build and are open about it: they speed up the first draft and the code. A person picks the design, checks every fact against what you told us, puts the page on a server, points your domain at it and answers the phone after. You get the saving without the invented opening hours.

If you want to try it yourself

Ask it to write the words for your page, paste them into our template builder, and see how they look. Fix anything it made up. It is a decent way to get past the blank page.