Blog/The real impact of AI on web design
17th September 2026
Of all the ways AI has impacted the world of web design, perhaps the biggest is that – to the untrained eye – it’s made creating a website look effortless.
You can tell an AI what you want and within seconds you can have a homepage, some relevant copy, a colour palette and even a complete website structure. Platforms can generate layouts at the click of a button, which is impressive, but it’s created a skewed idea of what actually goes into building a good website.
The main issue is that creating a website and creating a good website are two completely different things.
AI can generate a page, but can it understand your customers, your competitors, your brand, your business goals or why someone should choose you over the company next door??
A professional website involves far more than plonking text and images into a template in a way that looks broadly professiona. There’s planning, UX, responsive design, content structure, visual hierarchy, SEO, accessibility, performance, conversion optimisation, technical setup, analytics, testing, ongoing maintenance…
But the most obvious thing AI lacks is judgement. Knowing what to leave out can be just as important as knowing what to include. Knowing why a particular headline needs to be shorter, why a button needs to move, why a page feels confusing or why a customer isn’t taking the action you want them to take comes from experience.
It can be a fantastic tool for web designers. I use it myself. It can speed up research, generate ideas, help with coding and take care of some of the repetitive work. That can ultimately mean better websites delivered more efficiently.
But AI hasn’t removed the need for a designer. In many ways, it has made good design more important.
The danger is assuming that because AI can produce something quickly, producing something good, and effective should also be quick and cheap.
A website isn’t simply a collection of pages. It’s often the first impression someone has of your business, and potentially the difference between gaining a customer and losing one. Because if it’s not done right, it might be the only impression someone has of your business.
AI can help support, but knowing what to build, why you’re building it and how to make it work in the real world still requires an actual person.