[102] How to Finish AI-Built Websites: A New Service for Web Designers
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This transcript was generated by Descript AI and may contain errors.
[00:00:00] People used to say that AI was going to replace website designers. Now the conversation has shifted to how easy it is to spot an AI-generated website. But neither one of those things bothers me as a Squarespace designer. I've been able to easily spot a Squarespace website for quite some time now. It's pretty easy to look at something and know if it is a WordPress blog or to date a website based off of whatever design trends it was following at the time.
[00:00:26] So I don't think looking like AI is really the problem. The problem starts to show up when you look just a little bit deeper and you realize that a website could be confusing
[00:00:36] Over complicated, a little fragile or easy to break, or worse, the person who created the website has no idea how to properly manage it, change it, or improve it
[00:00:46] and that's why I honestly think that AI has created one of the best new services that we Squarespace designers can offer. That's what I'm talking about in this episode of Think Inside the Square. I'm your host, Becca Harpain, and for a transcript of this episode, along with the links to any resources I'll mention, visit insidethesquare.co/podcast.
[00:01:06] Now, I do say the term Squarespace a lot, but I want you to know the term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace Incorporated. This content is not affiliated with or endorsed by Squarespace Incorporated. This is just my opinion as one designer out there in the wild trying to make my clients happy.
[00:01:20] Let's start this conversation by talking about the "it looks like AI" comment that people are getting for the websites that they're generating with AI. Now, when AI first came out and a lot of people were using it for copy, we saw the same commentary happen with the em dash. But the em dash has been a part of language for quite a long time.
[00:01:39] It just happened to be that AI decided to favor it. Now, there are definitely a lot of telltale signs of giveaways for websites generated by AI. It prefers to create the eyebrow header or uppercase text that's a smaller font size and with increased letter spacing, but that's a design trend that's been around for a while.
[00:01:57] It's really just copying styles that it's seen used by other websites and integrating that into a design. Now, we do have the ability to influence that design and change it, but a lot of people that are generating AI websites, they don't have those design skills that we website designers do have, so they don't know how to ask AI for something unique or something that's different.
[00:02:19] They're going to end up with a site that looks like every other site. But you see, I don't necessarily think that that's the problem. As website designers, hiding those AI indicators doesn't really change anything about a website that's not effectively communicating something to the visitor. It doesn't change anything about the way the website functions, and it doesn't change anything about the way the website is maintained, and I feel like those are so much more important for us to focus on and improve for our clients than to worry about whether or not it looks like a generic website.
[00:02:51] Let's not forget that Squarespace was built on templates. Without the use of clever CSS or customized PNGs put in creative ways, most Squarespace websites can look a lot like the templates they started on. Yeah, you'll change the text. Yeah, you'll change the colors. You'll add your own images. But at the end of the day, a Squarespace template can look like a Squarespace template, and an AI website can look like an AI website.
[00:03:16] Making sure that it's functional, that it can be maintained and managed by the client, and that it's truly conveying the message it needs to convey to its visitors, that's the job the website needs to do, and that is something that we as Squarespace designers can help people with if they've already started generating a site with AI.
[00:03:34] I truly think that this is a service we can start to offer.
[00:03:38] I want you to stop thinking about these projects as how do I make this website look less like AI and more like something custom? And I want you to start thinking about this project as how do I create this design that my client really likes and turn it into something built within the Squarespace ecosystem?
[00:03:55] How do I turn this into something that they can maintain, that they can manage, that will handle the responsiveness like Squarespace does? If you take a look at a layout that a client gives you that was generated by AI, and there's that classic eyebrow header, then the headline text, and then three columns on there, that's something you can build in Squarespace, and that is your skill set.
[00:04:16] So again, removing all the indicators of it looking like AI, that's not necessarily where the service really lies. What your client needs you to do is make the website functional, make it usable, make it easy to maintain,
[00:04:29] And then apply your own skill set when it comes to design. Your design judgment, it's incredibly valuable. But I want you to remember that when you're working with these clients who are bringing you a project they started on AI, they're probably pretty proud of how far they got it. And arguably, it looks a lot better than something they could have sketched out on a napkin.
[00:04:49] So don't abandon the design completely, but think about it from your own perspective as a designer. How can you use your design skills to influence the way it's structured, to influence the way that it's managed, and to overall improve the design, not necessarily just change it because it looks like AI
[00:05:06] Now, this is where I think it gets really interesting for Squarespace designers like us because we're going way past the, "Yeah, I can fix that," kind of project, and we're moving into the role of consulting
[00:05:18] It's no longer just, "Here's what I want a website to be. Can you make the whole thing?" It's, "Here's something I started. Can you finish it?" Now, I've had a handful of clients who have started to build this website, and they like what they've created on AI, but then they run into a roadblock when they realize that they need to sign up for Cloudflare, they need to find a way to connect their domain, they need something to access the contact form.
[00:05:41] They have no idea how to set up all of the details and functionality around how the site works. So they'll send me the mock-up that they created with AI, and then they want me to build that into Squarespace so it's functional, it's usable, it's manageable, and everything is inside one ecosystem: domain, hosting, SSL, security, forms, all of that built into one cohesive place.
[00:06:03] My job is no longer to design the website for them. My job is to take what they made and make it work for them. That is an entirely new service that did not exist a few years ago. Heck, it didn't even exist a few months ago. People are becoming more and more comfortable using AI to create content. So what I'm doing now is taking that content and making something usable out of it.
[00:06:26] But here's where it gets pretty interesting for me as a designer. They'll send me something that definitely looks like AI, and my main job isn't to change the design. But once I start putting stuff in Squarespace, I can absolutely influence the design direction and offer some insight, some advice on accessibility, different ways that they can improve their design.
[00:06:47] Now, again, I'm not focused entirely on just stripping everything that could possibly be an indicator of AI out of this project, but I'm making sure that I influence them in a direction to create something or at least put their brand behind something that's a little bit more unique. I do think this is an exciting new service for us Squarespace designers to offer if we're willing to.
[00:07:08] They may hire you because they think they need someone to connect the dots. But once you get inside what they're actually working on, you can help them simplify the system, you can help them improve the design and make it more accessible, make it more unique for their own brand and their own business, and most importantly, steer them towards something that's more intentionable and manageable for them as a client.
[00:07:30] They don't need to learn how to edit and manipulate code, but they can learn how to create a blog post on a Squarespace website.
[00:07:36] That is a much smaller learning curve, and I think that's something that my clients need right now. They feel empowered, they feel excited, they're happy with what they create, but what they need is a little bit of an influence. They need my design skills to say, "Nope, this isn't quite accessible. This could look a little bit better if we do this, and this right here is gonna be so much easier for you to manage than learning HTML and CSS and JavaScript in an afternoon."
[00:08:00] You can learn Squarespace in an afternoon, but writing all those code languages, that doesn't need to be their job. So at the end of the day, what I want you to really consider here is that we are no longer entering projects from the very beginning like we used to. This new level of service that we can offer to our clients out there is us entering a project about halfway through, the sixty to eighty percent mark.
[00:08:22] Most of the design concepts are done, most of the copy is finished, and what our clients need us to do is to truly clean up the design because AI generated doesn't actually mean AI finished, right? They've started the project. It's up to us to get it to that finish line. Now, something that I'm offering in this service, again, is consulting on the design style, making sure that what we're putting out there in the world isn't generic.
[00:08:46] It is genuinely unique. I also try to make sure that my clients really take a look at the copy that AI created and change it so it sounds like them. I don't like the idea of using just all AI-generated copy for a website. I think it's really important for my clients to truly read a headline and say it in their own words, and I try to coach them through that process.
[00:09:08] Now, to be clear, some of my clients weren't a fan of that. They wanted to just run with what AI had, and we did. At the end of the day, my job is to take what they want and make it live on the internet. So I went ahead and went through with it. But I do think we have a unique opportunity to influence the design, to influence the copy, and to make sure that the structure is there so that this website is usable by those visitors, manageable for the client
[00:09:32] and overall accessible.
[00:09:34] So if you're a Squarespace designer and you're noticing AI influence a lot of your projects or you're seeing some dwindling numbers for your client count, here's what I want you to think about.
[00:09:43] You don't have to compete with AI for the initial build, but what you can do
[00:09:48] is become extremely well adept at turning the almost finished into something that's worth publishing Don't compete with AI for the initial project, but get it over the finish line. Treat this much more like a relay race than a sprint
[00:10:02] All right, Squarespacer, I really wanna hear from you about this one. Are you starting to see projects like this show up in your inbox? Or maybe you thought about this as a service and you've decided to start offering it? Let me know what you're seeing out there in your land of potential clients. I'd really like to hear from you.
[00:10:18] You can email me anytime, hello@insidethesquare.co, or leave me a comment wherever you happen to be listening to this podcast. And if you have another website designer out there in your community and you wanna start having this conversation, send them this episode. I think this is going to get more interesting the more we can talk about it together as a community.
[00:10:35] Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Becca from Inside the Square. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and most importantly, have fun with your website. Bye for now
Your next web design client might already have an AI-built website.
There’s a lot of conversation right now about how easy it is to spot an AI-generated website. The familiar eyebrow text, oversized headline, three-column layout — we’ve all seen it. But I don’t think looking like AI is really the problem.
We’ve been able to recognize Squarespace templates for years. You can usually spot a WordPress blog, and you can often guess when an older website was built based on the design trends it follows. A website looking like the tools or trends that created it isn’t new. What matters more is what happens when you look past the design.
Can the website actually do what it needs to do? Is it accessible? Does it work well on different screen sizes? Can the person who owns it maintain it without learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript? Does the copy sound like their business, or does it sound like something AI wrote for anyone?
Those are much more interesting problems for a web designer to solve.
Your client may already be halfway there
AI is changing where some website projects begin.
I’m starting to see more and more potential clients show up with a seemingly complete website concept. They might already have the layout, most of the copy, the images, and a design they genuinely like. That doesn’t mean the project is finished, it’s usually far from it.
AI get’s them 60-80% of the way there, and then they realize that they don’t want to spend even more time figuring out hosting, domains, security, integrations, and making changes to content isn’t as easy as it was to create it in the first place. These people don’t need me to create a website like I used to. They needed me to take what they made and make it work for them.
I think that’s an important shift for web designers, because it means we may start entering more projects at the 60–80% mark instead of at the very beginning.
The question changes from “Can you build me a website?” to “I started this. Can you finish it?”
Finishing an AI-built website is still design work
Let me be clear here: this does NOT mean blindly rebuilding whatever AI created.
Once I start turning one of these concepts into a Squarespace website, my experience as a designer still matters. Part of this new role is to consult your client on accessibility problems, simplify a confusing layout, improve the typography, make the site easier to manage, and suggest ways to make the design feel more specific to the client’s brand.
The same goes for copy. AI can create a perfectly usable headline, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Sometimes the most useful thing I can do is ask a client to read that sentence and say it again in their own words.
At the same time, I don’t think the goal should be to erase every trace of AI just because we can.
If a client likes the concept they created, they’re probably proud of how far they got. There’s no reason to throw it all away just so a designer can start from scratch. Our value as a designer is in knowing what to keep, what to change, what needs to be rebuilt, and what will make the finished website easier for the client to use.
Our role of traditional designer is changing. I’m starting to consider my value in consulting and editing rather than traditional website design. But honestly? I’m loving it, and I think this is where the future of my career really is.
Instead of competing with AI to create the very first version of a website, web designers can become extremely good at finishing the version AI helped create.
For Squarespace designers, that might mean taking a complicated AI-built concept and rebuilding it inside one manageable ecosystem. It might mean improving accessibility and responsive behavior. It might mean simplifying the technology, refining the design, and making sure the client understands how to update the thing after launch.
AI may be responsible for the first draft, but that doesn’t mean the finished website no longer needs design judgment.
It may simply mean our clients are going to meet us a little further down the road.
And if that’s where web design is headed, I don’t think our job is to race AI to the starting line.
AI started it. You finish it.
AI is in the project. Now what?
Clients are already using AI for copy, code, layouts, feedback, and ideas — which means some wonderfully awkward situations are starting to show up in real website projects.
Now What? walks through six of them, with five practical steps you can take and a sample response you can actually use with your client.
Already thinking beyond the individual project? Beyond the Basics is where we go deeper into the judgment, problem-solving, and Squarespace fluency that make your expertise valuable when AI can generate the first draft.
