Reviewing Webflow's AI Site Builder
Is it any good? How will it change our jobs as Webflow developers? Should we embrace it or fear it?
A few days ago, Webflow launched its highly anticipated AI site builder. After playing with it for a few hours, I wanted to collect my thoughts and share them with you.
This review will answer the following questions:
How good is it at designing websites?
How creative is it, i.e., how creatively different are outputs from one project to another?
Can you use it for client projects?
How will this impact Webflow’s ecosystem? Who should be worried, and who should be excited?
How good is the new AI Site Builder at designing websites?
Webflow’s AI building experience starts by inputting a prompt – you first tell it what your business or personal project is about. Next, you can choose from various themes, colors, fonts, etc., to define your website’s style. You get a live preview, and you can tune the layout of each generated section by selecting from a range of predefined components. This last bit is very similar to using Relume.
Once you’re set, it will generate a Webflow project, create a style guide, and link it to Variables. All designs are responsive, and some sections will even have animations.
I’ve created three projects so far, and the results are definitely on the upper end of quality compared to other AI-based site builders. Webflow has put a lot of thought into the design aesthetic of the predefined components and themes.
Where this tool stands out is the ease of fine-tuning results. Each section can be regenerated, so if you’re unhappy with the initial result, you can swap it for another. You can also use a chat-like feature to tell it what adjustments you’d like to make, such as changing the size, color, etc.
Here are a few examples of what I could get with quick fine-tuning.
There are, of course, limitations to what you can design.
Webflow’s AI builder is a pick-and-choose way to build a website, with AI stitching it together.
As best I can tell, the tool relies on the predefined section layouts and bases all its designs on them. So, if you’d like to create something that's not in the catalogue of layouts, you’re out of luck.
Of course, this will get better as more layouts become available in the catalogue.
It’s competent at building presentational websites – homepage, product features, blog, team, careers, etc. Once you step out of this comfort zone, at least for now, it’s out of its wits.
How creative is it, i.e., how creatively different are outputs from one project to another?
One criticism of AI site builders is that their outputs all look the same. I wanted to test how creative Webflow’s solution is. Do results differ? Let’s say there are two designers, each building a website for a real estate agency. Will the websites look similar, or will they be significantly different?
To find out, I did a simple experiment and launched two AI projects, giving the builder two different prompts. Both were for a Berlin-based real estate agency specializing in commercial real estate.
Prompt 1: Berlin Best Realtors is a specialized real estate agency based in Berlin, focusing exclusively on commercial real estate. We connect businesses, entrepreneurs, and investors with ideal commercial properties across the city. Our expertise helps clients navigate Berlin's competitive commercial property market, from retail spaces and office buildings to industrial facilities and mixed-use developments.
Prompt 2: BCRE (Berlin Commercial Real Estate) is a premier real estate consultancy dedicated exclusively to Berlin's dynamic commercial property market. We serve as strategic partners for businesses, investors, and property owners navigating the complexities of commercial real estate in Germany's capital.
On the surface, the two results I received were different in structure, color, fonts, and layouts:
I then tried to regenerate a design for Prompt 2. Look what happened:
Webflow allows you to regenerate individual sections. So I tried to do that with the hero section of Prompt 2. After a few clicks, I got very close to Prompt 1. The only difference was that the background image was vertical rather than horizontal.
To be fair to Webflow, I could quickly get a different hero layout. In fact, here’s one that looks very different:
But after a bit of playing around, you soon realize you know all the hero section layouts available.
The selection is the same across projects if you look at other attributes, like buttons and forms:
This selection still creates a ton of room for variation. I don’t expect the designs to look identical. However, the tool has a vibe and a style that it brings in terms of both layouts and themes.
In this regard, it’s very similar to other component-based design systems. The other day, I saw a design with a card section that would fly out as you scrolled. I could tell this was a Relume component, but the site still had an original design.
This originality is less evident with the AI builder, at least in the current iteration. This will depend, to an extent, on how people use this tool. You still get the full power of Webflow, and you can change all layouts once you are in the designer. But if you use it at face value, we’ll start seeing sites with a similar look and feel everywhere.
Can you use it for client projects?
This brings me to the next question: Can you use it in a commercial project? Again, this will depend on how you use it. While this can be a good starting point, creating unique designs requires tweaking.
It also bypasses creating designs in Figma. This is fine as long as you can stick to making changes using the tool. But once you move into manually designing custom sections, I can see how this might slow you down. In my experience, hashing out designs with a client in Figma first is far more efficient than changing it in Webflow.
As I wrote, I’m sure Webflow will invest in expanding the catalogue of components and themes, making the results more diverse and saving you from building custom sections.
Until then, I think this will be best used on projects that don’t require unique layouts and designs and where speed of delivery is more critical.
How will this impact Webflow’s ecosystem? Who should be worried, and who should be excited?
Whenever a new AI system is introduced, it creates a wave of excitement and pronounces some professions dead. While I don’t think Webflow developers will be out of a job anytime soon, introducing AI tools into Webflow signals changes ahead.
How we do our jobs will change. Eventually, most of the designing will likely happen inside Webflow, where it will be very easy to create new designs.
I also suspect that companies like Relume might lose some of their business. I know these tools have a big following, but why pay extra if a library of components exists inside Webflow with AI tuning it to your designs? The current iteration is not there, so don’t ditch your Reulme subscription just yet.
Template designers might be worried as well. Part of the reason I wanted to look into this new tool is that I’m currently building my first template. I was afraid it would make templates obsolete. The good news is that it hasn't. The bad news is that it might soon. We’ll see more specialized templates, and the AI builder will serve your run-of-the-mill corporate websites well.
This tool is still in beta. We’re at the beginning, and no one knows how useful it will be for Webflow professionals. It’s possible that people will not embrace it and will be axed, just like Webflow Memberships. Or it can become an indispensable tool in our toolbox.
A lot will depend on how much Webflow invests in developing this feature going forward. Profesionally I’m excited about these changes. The result will be some significant simplification of our jobs.
Personally, I’m sad to see the old way of designing websites slowly disappear. This is not the fault of AI tools. This is a trend that’s been happening for a long time. Websites are commodities at this point. They all look the same, and more creative ideas don’t have a lot of room. I know – it’s all about the conversion, but still, it’s nice to stumble on some out-of-the-ordinary designs occasionally. But that’s a rant for another day.
Thanks for reading all the way. See you in the next post!
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Great read. FYI-I use Relume.io’s AI builder and find it’s a better way to get Webflow builds very fast. Thanks for the great review!