A year or two ago, building a website meant picking a template or hiring someone. Today you can type a paragraph into an AI tool and watch a full page appear in under a minute. Headline, layout, buttons, even a color palette. It feels like magic, and honestly, it is impressive.
I work with AI tools in my own design process, so I am not here to tell you to avoid them. I am here to tell you what happens in the hours after that first impressive result, because that is where most people get stuck.
Fast is easy now. Custom is still work.
What AI Is Genuinely Good At
Let me give credit where it is due. AI is very good at:
Producing a working first draft of a page layout
Writing clean starter code for sections, forms and simple interactions
Suggesting copy you can react to, even if you rewrite it
Speeding up repetitive tasks like resizing, renaming and reformatting
Explaining code or settings you do not understand
If you have a clear idea and some technical comfort, these tools can save you real time. They also lower the barrier for people who never thought they could build their own site.
That is a good thing.
The Problem Is Not Speed. It Is Sameness.
Ask an AI tool for a website for a boutique fitness studio and you will get a website for the average boutique fitness studio. Hero image, three benefit columns, testimonial strip, call to action. Nothing is wrong with it. Nothing is yours, either.
That happens because AI works from patterns. It gives you the most likely answer to your prompt. If your prompt is general, your result is general. The tool is not being lazy. It simply does not know:
Who your best client really is
What makes people hesitate before they contact you
What you want a visitor to do first, second and third
What your competitors look like and how you need to stand apart
What you would never say or show on your site
You know those things. The tool only knows what you tell it.
Getting Something Custom Means a Lot of Conversation
This is the part that surprises people. To get a site that feels like your business, you do not type one prompt. You have a long back and forth with the tool.
You describe the section. You get something close. You say the spacing feels off on mobile. You ask for the button to look different. It breaks the menu. You ask it to fix the menu. It changes something else. You explain the brand again because it forgot. Hours go by.
The people who get great results from AI are rarely the best prompt writers. They are the people who walk in with a clear picture of what good looks like. They can say, "This section needs more breathing room, the heading should lead the eye to the button, and on a phone the image should sit above the text." That sentence is a design decision. The AI can carry it out, but it cannot make it for you.
What You Need to Bring to the Conversation
Here is the knowledge that turns an AI-generated site from generic into effective.
A clear vision and design direction
Before you open any tool, know your brand personality, your audience and the feeling you want a visitor to have in the first five seconds. Collect a few sites you admire and be able to explain why. Without direction, the tool fills in the blanks with the safest choices.
An understanding of UX and user flow
User experience is how the site works for a real person. Where does a first-time visitor land, what do they need to see, and what is the easiest path to booking, buying or reaching out? A site can look beautiful and still lose people because the navigation is confusing, the contact form is buried or the page asks for too much too soon. AI does not walk through your site as a nervous first-time customer. You have to.
SEO fundamentals
Search engine optimization is not something a tool adds by default. Page titles, headings in a sensible order, descriptive image alt text, clean URLs, internal links, fast load times and content that matches what people are actually searching for all need to be planned. An AI-generated page can look finished while missing every one of these. If nobody can find the site, the fastest build in the world did not help.
GEO, or optimizing for AI-driven search
More people now ask AI assistants and answer engines for recommendations instead of scrolling a list of links. Generative engine optimization is about making your site easy for those systems to understand and trust: clear descriptions of what you do and who you serve, well-structured pages, straightforward answers to common questions, consistent business details and real signs of credibility like reviews and results. A generic site gives AI search very little to work with.
Fast Does Not Mean Finished
Here is a simple way to think about it. AI can get you to a draft quickly. A professional-quality site needs everything that comes after the draft:
Strategy: who the site is for and what it needs to accomplish
Structure: pages, navigation and the path a visitor takes
Design decisions: hierarchy, spacing, brand consistency
Content: copy that sounds like you and answers real questions
Technical care: mobile behavior, speed, accessibility, clean code
Search work: SEO and GEO built in from the start, not patched on later
Testing: clicking through every page on a phone, a tablet and a laptop
AI can help with several of these steps. It cannot own any of them.
A Smart Way to Use AI on Your Own Site
If you want to build with AI, here is how I would approach it:
Write your brief first. Audience, goals, tone, pages and the one action you want visitors to take. Paste it at the start of every session.
Work one section at a time. Small requests give you better control than asking for the whole site at once.
Be specific about mobile. Check every change on a real phone, not just a desktop preview.
Review anything it writes about your business. AI can invent details, so confirm every claim, service and number.
Add your own proof. Real photos, real testimonials and real results are what make a site feel trustworthy.
Do an SEO and accessibility pass at the end. Check titles, headings, alt text, link text and color contrast before launch.
Know when to stop. If you are on your tenth round of fixing the same section, it may be time to bring in a person.
Using AI-Written Code in Squarespace Code Blocks
Squarespace is a great place to use AI for small, targeted upgrades. Ask for a custom button style, an animated counter or a tidy pricing layout, then drop the result into a Code Block, the Custom CSS panel or Code Injection. It works well, but a few habits will save you headaches:
Treat the code as a draft. AI often writes for a blank page. Squarespace already has its own styles, so generic code can clash with your template or change things you did not mean to touch.
Ask for scoped code. Request selectors that only affect the section or block you are working on, so one tweak does not ripple across the whole site.
Keep Code Blocks lean. Put styles in Custom CSS or Code Injection and keep the Code Block itself for the markup. It is easier to maintain and easier to fix later.
Insist on responsive code. Ask for fluid sizing, percentages and flexible layouts instead of fixed pixel widths, then check it on a real phone and tablet.
Let your site styles lead. Avoid code that sets its own section backgrounds or overrides your fonts and colors unless that is the goal, so your template styling still shows through.
Test after every change. Check each page it touches, plus the mobile menu, forms and any animations.
Keep a backup. Save a copy of what worked before you ask the tool to change it again.
Code Block availability can depend on your Squarespace plan, so check yours before you plan around it. And if a snippet starts fighting your template, that is usually a sign the design needs a person to step in.
When It Makes Sense to Hire a Designer
AI is a great fit if you need a simple placeholder site, you enjoy the process or you have time to learn. Working with a designer makes more sense when your website is a core part of how you get clients, when you need it to rank and convert, or when your time is better spent running your business.
A good designer is not competing with AI. We use it, and we also bring the judgment, the process and the experience of seeing what works across many projects. With more than 250 website projects and 80 site audits behind my work, the most common problems I see are rarely about code. They are about unclear messaging, confusing flow and sites that search engines cannot read well. Those are strategy problems, and they are exactly the ones a fast build skips.
The Bottom Line
The new age of AI and web design is exciting. You can get a site on the screen faster than ever. But a site that is custom to you, easy to use and findable in both Google and AI search still comes from clear thinking, good design judgment and a lot of intentional work.
AI is a powerful tool. You still have to be the one steering.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can AI build my entire website for me?
AI can generate pages, layouts and code quickly, but you will still need to direct the design, check the content for accuracy, test how it works on every device and handle SEO. Most people find a usable result takes many rounds of refinement.
Is an AI-generated website good for SEO?
Not automatically. SEO depends on page structure, titles, content that matches search intent, site speed and internal linking. Those need to be requested, checked and adjusted. A site that looks good can still be invisible in search.
What is GEO and why does it matter for my website?
GEO stands for generative engine optimization. It means structuring your site so AI assistants and answer engines can understand what you offer and recommend you. Clear service descriptions, helpful FAQs, consistent business information and credibility signals all help.
Should I use AI or hire a web designer?
It depends on your goals. AI works well for simple sites and for people who want to learn. If your website needs to attract and convert clients, a designer who understands strategy, UX and search can save you time and costly rework. Many people do both, using AI for speed and a designer for direction and quality.
How long does it take to get a custom result with AI?
The first draft can take minutes. A site that truly fits your brand and works well usually takes many hours of prompting, testing and fixing, plus the knowledge to know what to ask for.
Not sure whether your AI-built or DIY site is doing its job? I offer website and SEO audits that show you what is working, what is not and what to fix first.
Book an audit or get in touch to talk through your site.
