It was a long-practiced, and heartwarming activity: When you started working on a new website project, you looked around in the preview or cases section of your favorite CMS (or a dedicated marketplace like Themeforest). You got inspired, and very often it led to buying something off the shelve to avoid starting completely working from scratch.
This was especially the case for WordPress and other mainstream CMSs. With AI, you can save those bucks.
Here is the new workflow that has emerged: You just point your AI to whatever webdesign you like, by giving it URLs to specific pages, or pasting screenshots, and letting it know which components you like from which pages, what to leave out.
You can also tell it what you got already, your own design system, especially, your own content. That way, you do not start with a bunch of lorem ipsum text and placeholder graphics from Unsplash.
You prompt your way to the webdesign you want, instead of searching for the perfect template for your CMS.
But there is a catch: AI helps you to quickly move in the direction you want to go. It can bite back once complexity increases beyond a website with a few templates and posts.
The people and companies who sold templates did more than design. They tested, customized for different CMSs, provided updates, and thought beyond the design aspect alone. You skip all of that when you prompt your own. It only emerges later in the process.
The limit of how far you can go with this AI-first approach is changing fast. It no longer only works for small sites. It can scale.
