AI website builders are one of the most significant changes to happen to the web development industry in more than a decade.
With some of the best AI website builders featuring tools including AI-assisted layout creation, intelligent coding, NLP-based content writing, and even generating entire websites from a single prompt -- Wix, Hostinger, Elementor, CodeDesign, and more platforms are now jumping into the AI bandwagon with their own innovative additions to the market.
However, AI website builders suffer from an oversaturated market that often results in feature bloat just to stay ahead of the competition. If you feel like you're overspending on an AI website builder, here are five essential features that you should prioritize before anything else. Get the basics right, then spend more only if your needs and budget coincide.
AI-powered website builders can automatically generate professional-looking website templates and layouts based on the user's industry, style preferences, and goals. Once the template has been generated, you can then personalize it with content, images, and branding elements.
For example, Squarespace uses AI to automatically generate professional-looking website templates based on the user's industry, style preferences, and goals. On the other hand, TeleportHQ allows users to generate complete website templates by simply describing the desired layout in a ChatGPT prompt. Appy Pie takes a different approach by maintaining a pre-built library of AI-generated templates that users can choose from.
How much faster is AI generation compared to traditional website builders? Francesco Borghero, CTO of Design Brothers, Italy, says that using TeleportHQ has reduced his agency's turnaround by at least 5 times. "Most of our customers don't want to spend hours writing text, designing elements, or paying for a professional photographer," says Avishai Abraham, CEO of Wix. He adds: "ADI has proven it -- the faster and easier the website creation is, the happier our users are."
AI website builders are increasingly incorporating codeless automation tools that enable users to create complex workflows within websites without writing any code. These tools use a visual interface where users can connect different apps to automate tasks and processes.
Velo AI, for example, is a low-code platform that helps developers enable integrations between third-party platforms using Wix's API. It does this by automating repetitive programming tasks and helping developers generate custom code snippets. Recently, Webflow has also introduced an AI Copilot that lets you generate custom code snippets to automate a wide variety of tasks, including third-party platform integration.
While the introduction of AI to automate complex web development workflows is a relatively new idea in the industry, it has already received plenty of positive response. Will Fourie, founder of a startup called Wix Code Bank, calls Velo a "game changer" for web design with Wix.
Custom code generation capabilities enable AI website builders to provide users with more flexibility and control over their websites. This feature allows users to automatically generate clean, functional, and optimized code snippets based on high-level specifications or design mockups from users.
Once a user provides a high-level description of the desired website functionality or design, AI analyzes the input to generate the corresponding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. While accuracy can vary between platforms, Dorik, Durable, and TeleportHQ are three platforms that have made some interesting strides in this space.
For example, Durable.co uses AI to generate clean, semantic HTML and CSS code from Figma designs. Users just upload their Figma mockups into Durable, which uses AI to create custom HTML/CSS code from scratch. It can even fine-tune existing code to make it more accurate, clean, and well-optimized.
AI algorithms can analyze website designs and provide intelligent suggestions to optimize the layout, color scheme, typography, images, and other design elements. By studying user behavior, preferences, and industry best practices, AI can recommend design improvements that enhance usability, aesthetics, and conversion rates.
Hostinger's AI-powered website builder is a great example of this. It uses heatmapping technology that predicts how users will interact with the design. It identifies areas that are likely to draw attention and provides suggestions to improve the visual hierarchy and calls-to-action placement for better user engagement. Similarly, Wix also uses AI-powered design suggestions to help you optimize your website layout as you build.
Mike Rodden, founder of Softwine.AI, explains how he has benefitted from using Hostinger's AI Website Builder: "I really like how easy it is to adjust any grid lines and spacing. Everything that I do seems to be one or two clicks away at the most, which is great." Mike is referring to the platform's AI-powered customization assistant, which offers suggestions and ideas for improving your website's layout as you design.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an AI technology that's revolutionizing the way websites generate text content like product descriptions, blog articles, and customer testimonials. By leveraging machine learning algorithms trained on vast amounts of human-written text, NLP models can understand the context and semantics of language to produce relevant content.
While the new AI-powered content writing features were once limited to dedicated platforms like Jasper or Writesonic, AI website builders have recently joined in to include these tools within their website creation suite. This has kicked off a whole new breed of one-stop design and content creations tools that can automate the entire process of maintaining an online presence.
Wix offers an AI Writer tool that can generate high-quality content for your website, such as product descriptions and blog posts, based on a few key inputs. You can find out more about Wix's AI offering in our full Wix review. Similarly, Hostinger AI Builder and TeleportHQ are two more platforms with their own AI writing tools built in.
