In 2018 I was asked to invest in and advise a new startup that had invented a fancy mesh network tracker to help you find and recover your stolen bicycle. The technology was well-executed. When I asked the founders, “Who are your competitors?” they proudly replied they had no competitors. They were so focused on their solution that they failed to see the obvious: Their actual competitor was an old fashioned $40 U-Lock, backed by a company who stands behind their product with insurance up to $500 if your bike is stolen. Their fancy $100 tracker and $5 monthly subscription model wouldn’t prevent your bicycle from getting stolen, or guarantee you’ll get it back. The mesh network required a critical mass that would be difficult to reach in each market (chick-egg problem). And at the end of the day, the technology did nothing that an old fashioned bicycle lock didn’t already do better.

So when people talk to me about AI-powered website builders, I see the same problem. Beyond the hype, what does it actually do better?

Many new startups are being launched with funding from investors who are desperate not to miss out on the next revolution. When there’s a lot of investment cash, and unscrupulous founders, it’s easy to convince people that AI will magically make everything better. Just like 2021 when everything was about the “metaverse”? Or 2018, when the “blockchain” was a must-integration in every new product/service? Or 2011, when “peer to peer” was all the rage, before being abandoned for more stable business models? These were great ideas, they had their utility in specific use cases, but they certainly didn’t merit being the fundamental model of every new business.

AI is undoubtedly a powerful tool. We use AI in our business to optimize and amplify our own hard-earned skills and deliver a better product and service without compromising quality. But like all tools, the results are highly dependent on who is using it. In the hands of an artist, a tattoo gun can make great works of art; in your hands, not so much. And as the saying goes, when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The world is not a nail.

Comparing AI-Powered vs. Traditional Website Builders

So what about new competitors who promise an AI-powered website builder? The question is, why? Are the results better? Is the service cheaper? 

A traditional website builder like our own, is already low cost, high quality, instant to deploy from carefully crafted master sites for your business type, and it’s built on a platform that has been live market tested, secured and optimized for decades. The quality of our results are reliable. And there is a team of real people who are available to help you. So what problem is AI supposed to be solving?

In comparison, the premise of an AI-powered website builder is that you can describe what you want and the AI will build you what you need on-demand. But this has several serious problems. 

You Are the Weak Link

I have worked with clients in many industries for 23 years, and by their own admission clients do not know what they want let alone what they need. A client may be great at selling homes or preaching a sermon, but they do not know how to describe their goals, organize their primary value propositions, communicate effectively, or describe design preferences that actually serve their needs. A perfect AI is still just a clumsy tool, in the hands of someone that doesn’t even know the right questions to ask. Like all tools, if you don’t know how to use it, if your competency is in some other area of expertise, you aren’t going to get great results.

AI Is Incapable of Critical Strategic Thinking in the Real World

Beyond having an amazing website builder platform, our greatest competitive advantage over other large popular platforms is our strategic consultation. We are able to extract what clients need, and then find the best way to implement a solution. But this process normally takes at least 1-3 hours of consulting directly with the client to understand their business, market, audience, value propositions for each audience and conversion goals (and lots of time after organizing the brainstorming and developing a plan after). A perfect AI that replaces our consultants, is still going to require your time to respond in depth. We have extensive experience working with AI and we are confident that it is not capable of doing this work (at least not yet). Until it’s 100% perfect, it will do more damage than good in the hands of someone who doesn’t know the difference.

AI Generated Content Has Zero SEO Value

But let’s assume the AI is so smart in a few years that it can guide you through the rigorous process of creating a tailored business, marketing and content strategy for you. That will get you 25% of the way there. Next it has to write all the content, and here is a serious problem. AI generated content will have zero SEO value. Google Search will not rank your website when the content is generated by AI, because if their AI overview tool is already capable of generating that same content on its own, why should they send anyone to your website? If you can’t create truly unique content, you will not rank on Google because there is no reason to send people to a website that wastes people’s time and which Google already has thousands of other sites in their index saying the same thing.

AI Content has No Human Value

Even if you know what you want to write as a general outline, current AI systems will write incredibly generic content that will bore your visitors to death. This can be useful for learning and explaining complex concepts, but for marketing websites that need to be impactful, it’s a disaster. It’s also incredibly problematic for brand consistency. This results in terrible “human optimization”. After spending lots of time/money on all your various marketing channels to get people to visit your website, new leads will abandon your website immediately because it is generic filler content that just wastes their time. So if you paid $1000 to drive traffic to your website, but your boring content makes people abandon your website after 30 seconds, it doesn’t matter how cheap your website was, you just lost $1000 in marketing. It’s much better to invest in planning and writing that gives you a unique voice that actually connects with people on an emotional level.

AI Produces Untested Novel Code

The core value proposition of these AI-powered website builders is that they will build a website on-demand, like your personal assistant. If the AI is creating a custom solution, it means the website will be deployed as novel code that has never been tested in the real world. This is extremely unreliable and prone to security and performance issues. One of the most critical technical issues is responsive design (usability for all device sizes), which an AI system will need to be very rigorous to test and implement fixes.

Instead of writing novel code, it would make more sense if an AI-powered website builders uses a standard platform like Sitetheory (our own) or Wordpress, and just integrate the client’s desired structure and content. But then we’re back full circle and must ask the critical question, what exactly has the AI improved upon?

AI-Powered Website Builders Can’t Outcompete on Pricing

And finally, there is a question of price. These new novel website builders are businesses, so they have to make profit and pay for the extra layers of complication they are inserting around the wheel they are trying to reinvent. However, the existing market is already extremely efficient and economical. The majority of the cost is in server hosting and quality support. AI is not going to bring down the cost of hosting. And while support can be optimized with AI, that’s something traditional competitors can implement as well (NOTE: we have not integrated AI support yet because we don’t want to compromise quality, but as soon as the quality is better with on-demand AI, we’ll continue to offer human support as backup when anyone wants to interact with someone real, but we don’t ever want you to feel at the mercy of a machine).

So in conclusion, AI-powered website builders seem cool, but at the moment it’s just hype. It doesn’t produce better results and it won’t bring down costs. We will continue to improve our technology and integrate AI where it makes sense and ads value. But at the moment, if you want a website that actually captures attention, builds trust, and calls people to action for your conversion goals, you are better off with a solid, tested platform and a talented team of real experts. Schedule a free 20 minute call if you want to talk with a real person.