AI and Web Design

As we continue our inevitable journey into obsolescence (always start with a positive!) I thought I’d give some insight into some popular AI Web Builders. Some of these are making heady claims ‘build your entire site with one prompt in minutes!’ and much like the previous ‘build your site in hours with our intuitive drag and drop builder!’ these claims are not always founded in reality.

However, it’s become obvious that potential clients for what I offer (bespoke web design) may be drawn towards faster and cheaper options that AI potentially offers and it was important to understand their capabilities (and current limitations).

I’ve already been using AI in my workflow – using it to problem solve coding issues, adding custom CSS and occasionally helping with a quick edit to an image or creating an icon. However, I’d not really used it as a tool to create web designs, either initial draft designs or web builds.

I was recently approached by several clients – one who wanted me to rebuild a site in WordPress that had been created in another proprietary tool and another who had started a new design in one tool but became overwhelmed with the process. For the second client, I recreated the design that had already been generated from flat designs.

So, I thought it was prudent to potentially offer an alternative to my existing process, investigate what AI builders existed and how I could integrate these to offer a valued combination of AI speed with design experience and knowhow. I didn’t want to investigate AI builders that used proprietary systems as I wanted to keep WordPress’s core strengths – independent ownership, easy migration, and the flexibility to add custom plugins as the site grows. As of August 2026 41% of all websites globally are powered by WordPress meaning it’s not likely to be going anywhere soon, there’s a global community and great features and support. On to the trials…

This was an obvious place to start for me – I already used the Divi theme in my website design and builds (95% of the sites in my Portfolio have been created using WordPress and the Divi theme).

I believed that I could handle the technical aspect of the build, creating a development site, installing WordPress and Divi and then give access to my clients so they could create the site as they wished. I’d then offer differing levels of design support before handling the migration to a live location.

The claim is ‘Divi AI can create entire websites and pages with a simple prompt.’. There is some truth to this but my experience was somewhat disappointing. The initial couple of sites I tried to create (I’d wanted to create 3 sample sites) were somewhat clunky. The AI images were very obviously AI generated (smooth, shiny faces) and when I tried to use library images there were some quite random results. I expected some rough edges but I felt the starting point was too far away from a finished design and too much time would be needed to get it back in shape (rather defeating the object).

You can see the attempt I started with (and gave up on), here.

So, after my disappointment with Divi AI I thought I’d see if there were other AI builders out there that worked within WordPress. The process for creating a site on ZipWP was slightly different. As well as providing a prompt to create the initial site build you selected a theme (limited on the free trial) as a starting point. This looked promising and the site that was created was definitely more polished than the Divi AI version (I can’t show you as the site gets deleted on free trials).

This was looking promising and there were various options within the pricing. However, after the initial build, once I started using the built-in editor (Spectra), I found it much less intuitive to use than the visual builders I was used to. In fact, it’s not really a full visual builder but utilises the WordPress Gutenberg block system. So, I didn’t feel this was the right fit either. I did some more searching and found Astra AI but soon realised that ZipWP was just a reskinned version of this (with some lifetime options in their pricing). The process was the same, as was the builder (so not the right fit for me or my clients).

It seems before integrating AI these two related products were similar in that they worked within WordPress but replaced the theme and integrated a builder. Oxygen is targeted at developers and Breakdance at designers.

They’ve both recently introduced the functionality to allow the WordPress site to be accessed by your own AI agent:

Copy-and-paste a prompt or command to connect Claude, Codex, OpenCode, or any other AI agent to Breakdance in seconds.

As a designer who creates websites, I was more drawn to the Breakdance option (despite the name!) and so I connected my Claude Desktop agent to some fresh WordPress installations, installed Breakdance Pro, and began the process of creating websites using prompts. I was really impressed with the quality of the sites, the speed and the flexibility to make changes, both site-wide and at a modular level. You potentially don’t need to even open the builder as everything can be adjusted by prompts. Having said that, the agent can’t check the page visually so a human checking the live site (on desktop and mobile) remained essential throughout. Also, I wanted a system that could be handed over to clients so they can make their own changes. I was impressed with the lightweight but powerful visual builder that Breakdance Pro provides. 

So, using this new combination I went about creating some example sites (a full Counsellor service site, a single page Electrician site and a home page design for a youth charity). You can see the results in the links below.

Everyone seems to be clamouring to offer the easy, cheap and quick solutions when it comes to AI and web design. While results can look impressive on the surface I’m not sure were at the stage where a single prompt will create a fully future-proof site in seconds. That time may come but for now I think combining the tool with professional, personalised skills is still a more prudent route.

To read more about what I’m offering I’ve created a site to showcase the work and explain why I think this option currently offers a good blend of human-led knowledge and design skills combined with the speed and efficiency of an AI tool:

See More