Web development
Should I Have an AI Build My Website?
What AI website tools do well, where they fall short, and how a few hours with a developer can help you get the most out of building with AI.
AI tools can now produce a working website from a few sentences of description. Ask for “a website for my accounting firm” and within minutes you will have pages, a layout, placeholder copy and often a way to publish it. It’s a fair question for any small business owner: why pay a developer at all?
The short answer is that AI is a powerful tool, and we use it every day in our own development work. But the quality of what it builds depends heavily on the quality of what you ask for, and that is where many AI-built projects run into trouble. Below we cover what AI does well, where it falls short, and how to decide what makes sense for your business.
What AI does well
AI tools have changed how quickly a website can go from idea to working draft. They can:
- Generate layouts and designs that look clean and professional, in minutes rather than days.
- Write code for pages, forms and common features.
- Draft content such as service descriptions, page headings and first-pass copy you can then edit.
- Iterate quickly. Asking for a different color scheme or a rearranged page is a sentence, not a billable afternoon.
For a simple, informational site, this can get you a long way. If you need a professional presence and don’t have strong preferences about how it is built, an AI tool may be all you need.
The catch: AI builds what you ask for
An AI tool will make every decision you don’t make for it. If you ask it to build a business website, it will pick a platform, a framework, a hosting arrangement, and (sometimes) a way for you to edit content later. It will usually pick something reasonable, but reasonable for a generic request is not the same as right for your business.
A few of the decisions that get made, whether or not you make them:
| Decision | What an AI tool will typically do | What you should consider |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | Pick whatever its builder is designed around, or a popular default | Will you need to edit content yourself? How often? See Static Sites vs. CMS for the trade-offs. |
| Framework | Choose a modern JavaScript framework it is familiar with | Is it suited to a content site, or built for a web application? Some choices add complexity a five-page site does not need. |
| Hosting | Publish to its own platform, or suggest a common host | What does it cost per month, and can you move the site later without rebuilding it? |
| Editing after launch | Often nothing: changes mean going back to the AI | Who on your team will make updates, and do they need to be able to directly edit content beyond prompting the AI for changes? |
| Forms, security and search | Add basic versions when asked | Spam protection, where form submissions go, SEO structure and accessibility are easy to miss if you don’t ask. |
Many AI tools will offer you choices. The problem is that if you aren’t sure what the right answer is, a list of options doesn’t help much. Being asked “Would you like to use Next.js or Astro?” is only useful if you know what the difference means for your budget and your business a year from now.
These decisions are also the expensive ones to change later. As we covered in Keeping Website Development Costs Down, changing a platform after a site is built often means rebuilding it.
AI has lowered the cost of hiring a professional, too
AI not only makes the do-it-yourself route cheaper - it also makes a developer’s time go further.
Tasks that used to take a full day, such as building out a new page layout, writing a custom feature, or migrating content, can now take a fraction of that. A development firm using AI tools well can deliver more in fewer hours, and that savings is passed on to clients who are billed for time worked. We bill at $105/hr for actual time, so when a task takes less time, the project costs less.
If you priced out a professionally built site a few years ago and decided it was out of reach, it is worth asking again. Hiring someone to manage the project may cost less than you expect, and you get the benefit of their experience on the decisions that matter. For current pricing benchmarks, see What a Small Business Website Actually Costs.
A middle path: a few hours of guidance
Even if you are committed to building your site yourself with AI, it can make sense to engage a developer for a few hours at the start. You keep control of the build and most of the cost savings, and you avoid the decisions that are hardest to undo.
In a short engagement, an experienced developer can:
- Ask the right questions. What is the site for, who will visit it, how often will it change, and who will make those changes?
- Recommend a platform and framework that fit your business, rather than whatever the AI tool defaults to.
- Set up a hosting arrangement with predictable costs that you own and can move later.
- Lay out what to ask the AI to build, and what to avoid asking it to build, such as custom features where a proven off-the-shelf tool already exists.
- Give you a plan you can follow with an AI tool, including the specific instructions that keep it on track.
From there, you can take it the rest of the way on your own, or check in when you hit a question along the way. A few hours of guidance up front typically costs a few hundred dollars, and it can save far more than that in rework.
Design: where AI helps and where a designer still matters
AI is very good at producing clean, modern designs. If you come to a project with a design and layout you already like, whether that is an AI-generated mockup or a set of example sites, that significantly reduces the time and cost to build. A developer can work from a clear visual direction instead of building, revising and rebuilding.
That said, don’t discount hiring a designer. AI tools produce designs that look good, but they tend to look good in a familiar way. They draw on patterns that already exist, so the result is often polished but similar to many other sites. If you are looking for something unique, a site that reflects a distinct brand, or a design built around custom photography and illustration, a designer brings an artistry that AI tools don’t match.
The right choice depends on your needs and your budget:
- AI-generated design works well when you need a professional, credible presence and your budget is limited.
- A designer is worth the investment when your website is a central part of how you stand out, or when you want something that doesn’t look like anyone else’s.
One tip: whichever route you choose, high quality photos of you and your business will do more to make a site feel custom than almost any design decision.
Other things to check before you launch
A site that looks finished isn’t always ready to launch. These are the issues we most often see on AI-built sites:
Who owns the site, and can you leave? Some AI builders let you export your site’s code and host it anywhere. Others tie the site to their platform, so if you stop paying the subscription, the site goes away with it. Before you commit, ask whether you can export the full site, where your form submissions and data are stored, and what it would take to move to another host.
Security. AI tools write code that works, but it isn’t always secure. Researchers testing AI-generated code have found security vulnerabilities in somewhere between a quarter and nearly half of samples, depending on the study. For a simple informational site the risk is low. If the site handles logins, payments or customer information, have someone experienced review it before it goes live.
Accessibility. Websites are expected to be usable by visitors with disabilities, and courts generally use the WCAG 2.1 AA standard as the benchmark. Thousands of accessibility lawsuits are filed against business websites every year, many of them against small businesses. AI tools frequently miss the basics, such as image descriptions, form labels, color contrast and keyboard navigation, unless you ask for them specifically.
Search visibility. A site that looks good to visitors can still be hard for search engines to understand. Page titles, descriptions, heading structure and schema markup are often missing or generic on AI-built sites. See Beyond Keywords: Common SEO Mistakes and How to Prepare for AI Search for what to look for.
Accuracy of the content. AI-written copy reads well, but it can state things about your business that aren’t true, such as services you don’t offer, credentials you don’t hold, or a service area that’s wrong. Review every page as if a customer will hold you to it.
Who maintains it after launch. Something will eventually break, or need to change. If the site was built entirely through an AI tool, you will be the one fixing it, and a developer taking over an AI-built site may need time to understand how it was put together. Keep a record of what platform, framework and hosting the site uses, and where your logins are stored.
So, should an AI build your website?
It can, and for some businesses it should. Here is how we would think about it:
- Build it yourself with AI if the site is simple, you are comfortable working through the details, and you have time to learn as you go.
- Build it with AI, plus a few hours of guidance if you want to do the work yourself but aren’t sure which platform, framework or hosting arrangement makes sense.
- Hire a developer if your site needs interactive functionality, will change often, or is important enough to your business that you would rather not manage it yourself. With AI making development faster, this option may cost less than you expect.
- Add a designer if you want a design that is distinctly yours.
How we can help
Whether you want us to build your site, or just want a few hours of guidance before you build it yourself, we’re happy to help. There is no charge for an initial conversation. Tell us about your project, or see how we approach web development and how we help businesses put AI to work.