Will generative AI instruments assist individuals construct higher websites, or will they simply fill the web with spam? With the latest launch of Design Intelligence, a brand-new website builder stuffed with generative AI instruments, Squarespace is betting on the previous.
I spoke with chief product officer Paul Gubbay about Design Intelligence and Squarespace’s broader AI technique. Our dialog started with a glimpse at what different (unspecified) AI-powered website builders ship when prompted to create a generic spa website: complicated, ugly websites.
This was, in fact, a setup for a demo of Design Intelligence, which started with a number of prompts permitting Gubbay to specify issues just like the form of the website he needed to construct and the character of the model being featured. The ensuing website featured AI-generated design, textual content, and pictures, however it appeared — for lack of a greater phrase — like an “actual” website, with loads of choices for additional customization.
Gubbay argued that whereas different website builders have “scrambled in a short time” to launch AI options, these rivals are asking, “How can we take this expertise and use it to face out to our prospects?” whereas Squarespace has been asking one thing a bit completely different: “How will we take all these newest applied sciences and actually use it to assist our prospects stand out?”
Learn a transcript of our dialog beneath, edited for size and readability.
After I think about an AI website era product, I think about it wanting like an immediate — like every part originally of the demo. However, right here, with each step, you would nonetheless go in and customize it. It seems to be, in some methods, like Squarespace immediately. So I’m curious: How did you resolve the place you needed the AI to step in and generate components of the website versus the place you needed it to nonetheless be customizable by people?
We’ve taken our time to essentially take into consideration how these items come collectively. So we’ve got this precept in terms of constructing one thing like a website or something visible: I do know it after I see it. And I believe that holds true for not simply professionals, however for anyone.
Attempting to construct a website by means of a chatbot is actually difficult. It’s like being in an automobile and typing in “flip left” or “flip proper.” You need the system to have the ability to present you issues, and whenever you see the factor you want, you wish to go, “OK, that’s it.” However, you then don’t wish to be restricted by that; you need to have the ability to proceed taking part in. We wish it to really feel like a playground.
And so for us, it actually was taking this “I do know it after I see it” idea. And each time the staff got here and mentioned, “How about we add a chat? How about we do these items that everybody’s doing?” we have been like, “I don’t suppose that’s actually the best way individuals wish to do that.” That simply turned the mannequin for us, and as soon as everybody adopted that, it turned very pure for all of us simply to suppose by means of that ideology.
It was essential for us, additionally, that we deal with the purchasers’ data that they offer us with loads of respect. You’re telling us one thing about who you’re, you’re entrusting us to take that and use it successfully for you. So we needed to ensure that the ideas that we confirmed you in Blueprint would carry by means of into the system as effectively, so that you’d really feel like these decisions you made up entrance weren’t only for naught.
You additionally talked about this concept of curation and expertise. Usually these issues are set in opposition to one another, however it sounds such as you’ve really tried to construct curation into the expertise. You even mentioned that you’ve got a curation engine. Are you able to speak a bit extra about what that appears like?
Our CEO says this generally; I believe it’s true: The truth that we’ve got textual content era within our website instrument, it’s nice. However, you would additionally go to OpenAI and ChatGPT, sort in one thing, get the textual content, and replica and paste it [into Squarespace], and that’s superb as effectively. The problem lots of people have is understanding how you can immediate these engines the proper technique to really get the proper output from them.
We now have a really particular, proprietary perspective on how we prompt engines and the way we curate the content material that comes out of them, to get to appear and feel and the views that we expect are going to be actually invaluable to our prospects based mostly on our expertise, based mostly on what they’re telling us, and based mostly on our style.
AI imagery is a good instance of that. We constructed our complete library of how we prompt [AI models] particularly to get the kind of imagery that we wish to get out, that we really feel may be very Squarespace, very proper for our prospects. We tag and curate these issues, after which we feed that again into the system once more.
Furthermore, we try this after we take a look at color palettes; we try this after we take into consideration format switching. That’s the curation aspect. It’s our design and artistic staff spending a number of time desirous about: How do these components come collectively? How will we prompt engines? How will we select what comes out of this and discard the issues that we don’t need that come out of this? We maintain getting higher and higher, so that you don’t must do it. The entire level of coming to us is that you just don’t must do it.
It feels like a part of your strategy is, you’re not essentially attempting to construct all these fashions yourself. You’re specializing in the way you current it and make it accessible and produce it collectively.
Look, we’re not the LLM specialists in creating all these several types of content material. We leverage them. We leverage Google, we’re leveraging OpenAI, Anthropic. Furthermore, we now have nice partnerships. However, for us, the key sauce is how we’re prompting and curating that content material because it’s popping out, and ensuring it matches what we find out about you.
Clearly, Squarespace has made it simple to create and customize websites already. How do you suppose bringing extra generative AI into the method will change that ecosystem? Are Squarespace websites going to look completely different than they do immediately?
I’d wish to suppose that they’re going to look even higher. It’s very, essential for us, and it’s all the time been extremely necessary for us, that design is all the time on the forefront. Folks come to Squarespace as a result of they imagine that design goes to make a distinction. And a giant a part of that distinction isn’t just capturing their model and who they’re, however it’s about ensuring that the factor that will get pre-created, on the finish of the day, feels bespoke.
If you ask a query like that, it may suggest all of them look the identical indirectly. And that’s completely not what we’d need, proper? So I believe we’re going to give individuals the instruments to get even higher outcomes sooner, however we’ll all the time ensure that it’s going to stick to the imaginative and prescient of what they need.
Squarespace works very intently with designers; you simply wrapped up a complete occasion with design companions. How do you suppose designers, particularly Squarespace companions, needs to be an instrument like AI? To what extent ought to they see it as a menace versus a possibility?
I believe it’s necessary to take a look at it as a possibility. AI expertise is clearly an enormous a part of our future, and similar to any new expertise, studying how you can leverage it and use it the proper means goes to boost what you’re capable to do. I 1 million p.c don’t imagine it replaces design. It’s meant to boost it. We are going to proceed to play our position to make sure that it enhances it for our prospects and our creators.
We simply had Circle Day with many [design] professionals. And after I take into consideration one thing like design intelligence, for me, it simply helps them convey an imaginative and prescient to life sooner to share with a buyer. However, in fact, [customers are coming to us] to implement all the issues that they need on high of that. If we are able to encourage them with some decisions that they may then change and go deeper on, incredible. We’re simply going to make the job sooner for them and perhaps simpler for them, however we’d by no means change them.
