AI Web Design for Small Businesses in 2025: What You Need to Know Before Building Your Website

The rise of artificial intelligence in web design: A guide for small businesses in 2025.

Introduction

As a web designer working primarily with small businesses, I'm always on the lookout for new tools and technologies that can make website building and management easier for my clients. Over the past few years, I've started to see AI generate a lot of buzz in the web design world. Companies like Wix and Squarespace have baked AI features into their platforms, claiming it will revolutionize the way websites get designed. But is AI really ready for primetime when it comes to small business websites? I decided to dive in and test out some of the leading AI web design tools to find out.

What is AI web design?

At a basic level, AI web design tools allow you to generate website layouts, content, images, and code through artificial intelligence rather than designing everything by hand. Some common examples of AI design features include:

• Website builders that use AI to convert your content into page layouts and suggest design options
• AI content writers that generate unique articles and product descriptions for your site
• Image generators that create custom graphics and photos
• Chatbots that can answer customer questions and book appointments

The main promise of AI web design is faster development and less manual work. But as with any new technology, there are pros and cons to weigh when it comes to leveraging AI on real small business websites.

The pros and cons of AI web design

Pros

Here are some potential benefits AI can provide for small business websites:

• Speed: AI tools can generate page layouts and content much faster than designing everything by hand. This allows you to develop sites quicker.
• Cost: AI design can be cheaper than hiring web designers and writers, especially for ongoing content creation.
• Personalization: Some AI tools can analyze user data to recommend personalized content for each visitor.
• Scalability: AI design might allow small businesses to scale their digital presence faster by automating more tasks.

Cons

However, there are still some downsides to weigh:

• Impersonal: AI-generated content may lack the human touch needed to connect with visitors.
• No customization: Layouts and copy produced by AI won't be customized to each brand.
• Learning curve: There is a learning curve for business owners to leverage AI design tools effectively.
• No oversight: AI can generate large volumes of content, but it still needs human oversight to catch errors.

Hands-on with leading AI web design platforms

To really understand the state of AI for small business websites, I tested out some of the leading solutions hands-on for real client projects:

Wix ADI

As the leading website builder for small businesses, Wix has fully embraced AI design. Their marquee tool is Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence). After entering your business information, Wix ADI generates a custom homepage design with matching inner pages in a matter of minutes. I tested it out for a client's simple 4-page site and was impressed with how nice the fully custom mobile layout looked right out of the box. All I had to do was swap in my client's color palette, logo, and content. The only downside was that because it's a fully automated design, I had little control to customize elements further. But for very basic sites, it's a huge time saver.

Squarespace

Squarespace recently introduced some AI features into their flexible website builder as well. I used Squarespace's auto-layout tool to quickly build a 10-page site for a client's online course. The AI did an excellent job turning my content into a polished, mobile-friendly site template complete with custom media placements. And because Squarespace gives you full edit access, I could still tweak layouts further. My only gripe was the new content tools didn't fully eliminate the need for me to write custom text in places. But overall, it sped up the process.

Conversion.ai

For AI content creation, I tested Conversion.ai to write a few blog posts and FAQ pages. The blog posts felt a bit robotic, needing lots of rewrites. But for FAQs, it could automatically generate questions and detailed answers based on some high-level topic prompts I provided. This freed me up from having to write 20+ unique questions and responses myself. However, close oversight is still a must to refine anything generated. AI content works best as a starting point still in my experience.

Is AI really the future of small business web design?

After running some real-world tests, I think AI web design tools show a lot of promise, but still have some maturing to do before they fully replace human designers for small business sites.

The benefits of speed and automation are real, especially for very basic sites. But anything beyond just a handful of pretty templated pages still requires thoughtful customization and human oversight.

For now, I see AI as a powerful design aid, but not a complete replacement. The ideal approach is likely utilizing AI tools strategically in your workflow to accelerate certain tasks, while still crafting the overall customer experience yourself.

Some final tips on effectively using AI web design tools as a small business owner:

• Use AI site builders like Wix ADI for very basic sites only (under 5 pages)
• Test AI content writers, but plan to rewrite and refine anything generated
• Focus any AI use on high-effort, repetitive tasks to start
• Closely monitor and optimize any AI outputs before going live
• Customize AI-generated layouts and content for your brand voice whenever possible

The bottom line

AI web design tools are opening exciting possibilities for automating rote tasks and speeding up website creation. But the human touch is still essential to crafting a custom brand experience. view AI as a design asset to thoughtfully incorporate rather than full replacement for skilled web designers needed to bring a website to life.

The true long term potential is likely combining intelligent tools with creative human oversight to allow small businesses to get online and tell their story faster than ever before.