If your website only needs to exist, an AI builder will do, and you should probably use one. If it needs to win you work, it needs someone who understands your business, takes responsibility for it, and is still there in two years. That’s the honest difference.
We use AI ourselves, every day. So this isn’t a web designer warning you off the competition. It’s what we’ve seen AI do well and badly.
What AI website builders do well
- Speed. Wix, Squarespace and the AI tools can produce a tidy-looking page in minutes.
- Cost. £10–£30 a month, and you can start today.
- Words to get you going. AI is good at a first draft of a page.
For a hobby, a side project, or a business that genuinely gets all its work by word of mouth, that may be all you need. We’ll tell you if that’s you.
Where AI falls short for a business
- It doesn’t know your customers. It writes what sounds plausible, not what your customers in Corby or Kettering actually ask before they ring. Those questions are what turn a visitor into an enquiry.
- It sounds like everyone else. Google and your customers see thousands of AI-written pages that say the same things. A site that sounds generic gets treated as generic.
- It gets facts wrong with confidence. We regularly see AI-built sites with the wrong opening hours, services the business doesn’t offer, or invented reviews. Each one costs trust, and some cost more than that.
- Nobody is responsible. When the site breaks, gets hacked, or stops appearing on Google, an AI tool can’t pick up the phone. Someone has to fix it, and it’s usually you.
- You often don’t own it. Many builder sites can’t be moved. Stop paying and the site goes.
What you’re actually paying a person for
- Judgement. Which pages you need, what to leave out, and what will make someone pick up the phone.
- Search that works. Proper set-up for Google and for the AI assistants people now ask “who should I use?”.
- Responsibility. Updates, backups and security handled, and one person to ring when something goes wrong.
- Ownership. A site that’s yours, which you can take anywhere.
The best result for most small businesses is both: a person who knows what they’re doing, using AI to do it faster and cheaper. That’s how we keep our prices where they are.
Not sure which you need? Ring Chris on 07877 764540 for a straight answer, even if that answer is “use Wix”.
Not sure how your own website measures up? Get a free website check: a report by email within minutes, then three fixes from Chris within two working days.
