AI website builders

AI website builder or a web developer?

AI can build a website that looks finished in minutes. Knowing whether it actually works for your customers is a different job, and that gap is where most do-it-yourself sites run into trouble.

What AI builders do well

• A fast first draft: a layout, colors and starter text in minutes.
• Low upfront cost: fine for a personal page, a one-time event or an idea you're testing.
• Ideas to react to: page outlines, headings and wording you can edit into your own.

Looking good isn't the same as working well

There's a big gap between what most people think web development involves and what a site actually needs. A site can look great to the person who made it and still fall short where customers feel it:

• Accessibility: people who are blind or have low vision often use screen readers, software that reads the page aloud. Buttons, links, images and form fields without meaningful names leave a screen reader with nothing useful to say. Well-built HTML provides most of those names, and ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) labels fill the gaps when used correctly, but ARIA added carelessly can make things worse. Menus and forms that only work with a mouse lock out people who navigate by keyboard, including many people with motor disabilities. Text that's too small or too low in contrast is hard to read for people with low vision or color blindness. Detectable accessibility failures are common across the web: WebAIM's 2026 analysis found detectable accessibility failures on roughly 96% of the top one million home pages.
• Every screen: a layout that looks right on the device it was built on can break on smaller phones, tablets, large monitors or larger text settings, where the owner never sees it.
• Design choices: fonts that are hard to read and color combinations that look stylish but strain the eyes or hide important information.
• Speed and search: heavy pages that load slowly on phones, and page structure search engines can't make sense of.
• Rules and requirements: accessibility requirements that may apply to your organization, privacy obligations, form security, and the best practices behind them.
• Things that fail later: a contact form that isn't protected from spam, or a feature that stops working after an update.

AI builds what you ask for

The tools keep getting better, and some include their own checks. But generating a site and verifying that it meets your business's needs are two different tasks. AI can't know what you didn't think to ask for, and if you don't know something needs attention, you may never notice it's missing.

The same goes for fixing problems. When something breaks, especially with a CMS (content management system), custom code or pieces that conflict with each other, an AI tool can keep suggesting fixes without ever finding the underlying cause.

Questions to ask before you build

• Can I export my site, or move it to another host later, or does it only run on this platform?
• Who checks it on other phones, tablets and text sizes, with a keyboard, and for the labels screen readers rely on?
• Who fixes it when something breaks after an update?

When building it yourself with AI makes sense

If the site isn't how customers find you, judge you or contact you (a personal page, a short-term event or an idea you want to test first), an AI builder can be a reasonable, low-cost choice.

When it's worth having a developer

• Your website brings in customers, takes bookings or sells.
• It needs forms, bookings or connections to other tools that have to work every time.
• You need to meet accessibility requirements, like the ADA, the 2024 rule for state and local governments, or Section 504 for organizations that receive federal funding. More about accessibility audits.
• You want to own your site and be free to move it later.
• You've already built a site with AI and want to know what it's missing.

No one, including me, can promise a website will never face an accessibility complaint or lawsuit. Careful building and testing lower the risk.

When something breaks

A website problem isn't always something you can solve by asking an AI tool another question or waiting on a platform's support team. CMS issues, conflicting code and unexpected behavior can take someone who knows how to investigate what's happening, trace the cause and correct it. I can dig into the code, debug the problem and implement a fix wherever the platform allows, instead of relying entirely on automated suggestions or waiting for someone else to figure it out.

That goes for sites I didn't build, too, including ones made with AI. Troubleshooting and fixes are part of my services, as a one-time fix or ongoing help. On a site I didn't build, I first take time to learn how it's put together and what it depends on, so a fix doesn't break something else, and I quote the work before I start. A full site audit is the best first step (why I recommend starting with an audit), but it isn't required.

On hosted builders like Wix and Squarespace, what I can change depends on the platform, and I'll explain those limits upfront.

What experience adds

AI is a powerful tool in the right hands. Like most developers today, I use AI-assisted tools to draft code faster, especially JavaScript, and I use their feedback checks along the way. But getting good results takes more than knowing how to prompt an AI. It takes the training and experience to know what to ask for, recognize what's missing and test the results. I use AI to speed up the work and to explore possible solutions, but I read the code myself, track down the real cause and make the fix.

Automated checks, AI's included, catch only part of the problems. So I review, test and adjust everything myself: accessibility (keyboard navigation, the labels screen readers rely on, contrast and text size), performance, how the site works across devices and text sizes, search, typography and color. A real person stays accountable for what ships.

For the longer version, including why a do-it-yourself car repair is a lot like a do-it-yourself website, read my FAQ answer: Why pay a web developer when AI can build my website?

Already have an AI-built site?

A free site check of your home page gives you the three biggest issues there and what they mean for your visitors, from a real person, not just a scan.

Checks, reviews and audits are information only: they show what could be improved, and any fixes are quoted and agreed on separately. Not every issue can be fixed, and perfect scores aren't always possible, depending on your platform, hosting, third-party tools and other factors.