Will generative AI tools help people construct higher web sites, or will they simply fill the online with spam? With the recent introduction of Design intelligencea brand new website builder stuffed with generative AI tools, Squarespace is betting on the previous.
I spoke with Chief Product Officer Paul Gubbay about Design Intelligence and Squarespace's broader AI strategy. Our conversation began with a have a look at what other (unspecified) AI-powered website builders deliver when asked to create a generic spa website: confusing, ugly web sites.
This was, after all, a setup for a Design Intelligence demo, which began with just a few prompts that allowed Gubbay to specify things just like the kind of website he desired to create and the personality of the featured brand. The resulting website featured AI-generated design, text, and pictures, but looked, for lack of a greater word, like a “real” website, with loads of options for further customization.
Gubbay argued that while other website builders had moved “in a short time” to introduce AI features, these competitors were asking, “How can we use this technology to face out to our customers?” while Squarespace asked something different has: “How can we make the most of all these latest technologies and really use them to distinguish ourselves?”
Read a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
When I imagine an AI website generation product, I imagine it looking like a command prompt – like the whole lot at the start of the demo. But here at every step you’ll be able to still go in and customize it. It looks, in a way, like Squarespace today. So I'm curious: how did you choose where to let the AI ​​step in and generate elements of the location and where to still have it’s human-customizable?
We took the time to actually take into consideration how this stuff fit together. So now we have this principle relating to creating something like an internet site or something visual: I understand it once I see it. And I believe this is applicable not only to professionals, but to everyone.
Trying to construct an internet site through a chatbot is an actual challenge. It's like sitting in a automotive and typing “turn left” or “turn right.” You want the system to have the ability to point out you things, and while you see what you want, you must say, “Okay, that's it.” But then you definately don't need to be limited by that; You need to have the ability to maintain playing. We want it to feel like a playground.
So for us it was really concerning the concept of “I understand it once I see it.” And each time the team got here and said, “How about we add chat?” How about we do this stuff that everybody does?” We said, “I don't think people really do this need to do like that.” That just became a model for us, and when everyone adopted that, it was natural for all of us to only think through that ideology.
It was also very essential for us that we treat the knowledge our customers give us with great respect. You tell us something about who you’re, and also you trust us to capture that and use it effectively for you. That's why we desired to be sure that the concepts we showed you in Blueprint were implemented within the system in order that you are feeling like the selections you made up front weren't in vain.
You also talked about this concept of ​​curation and technology. Often this stuff are at odds with one another, however it seems like you've actually tried to integrate curation into the technology. You even said that you’ve got a curation engine. Can you share a bit more about what that appears like?
Our CEO says this sometimes; I believe it's true: the proven fact that now we have text generation in our website tool is great. Or you can go to Open AI and ChatGPT, type something, get the text, and replica and paste it (into Squarespace), and that's advantageous too. The challenge for many individuals is methods to properly control these engines to really get the precise performance.
We have a really specific, proprietary perspective on how we prompt engines and the way we curate the resulting content to take care of the look and views that we consider are truly helpful to our customers, based on our experience what they tell us and based on our tastes.
AI images are a very good example of this. We've built our entire library of our prompts (AI models) specifically to get the kind of images we wish to place out, which we expect are very Squarespace and a excellent fit for our customers. We label and curate this stuff after which feed them back into the system.
This is what we do once we have a look at color palettes; This is what we do once we take into consideration a layout change. That’s the curation element. It's our design and inventive team that spends a number of time occupied with: How do these elements come together? How can we request engines? How do we elect what comes out of it and discard the things we don't want to come back out of it? We're recovering and higher so that you don't should. The point of coming to us is that you just don't should.
It seems like a part of your approach is that you just're not necessarily attempting to construct all of those models yourself. You give attention to the way you present it, make it accessible, and convey it together.
Look, we're not the LLM experts at creating all these several types of content. We use them. We use Google, we use OpenAI, Anthropic. We have great partnerships. But for us, the key is how we goal and curate the content as we publish it, ensuring it suits what we find out about you.
Clearly, Squarespace has already made constructing and customizing web sites easier. How do you think that this ecosystem will change as more generative AI is incorporated into the method? Will Squarespace web sites look different than they do today?
I'd wish to think they'll look even higher. It's very, very essential to us, and it's at all times been incredibly essential to us, that design is at all times on the forefront. People come to Squarespace because they consider design will make a difference. And an enormous a part of that difference will not be just capturing their brand and who they’re, but additionally ensuring that what’s pre-made feels bespoke at the top of the day.
When you ask an issue like that, it’d mean that all of them look sort of the identical. And that's absolutely not what we wish, is it? So I believe we're going to provide people the tools to get even higher results, faster, but we're at all times going to be sure it's in keeping with the vision that they need.
Squarespace works very closely with designers; You have just accomplished a complete event with design partners. How do you think that designers, especially Squarespace partners, should view a tool like AI? To what extent should they view it as a threat moderately than a chance?
I believe it's essential to have a look at it as a chance. AI technology is clearly an enormous a part of our future, and as with all recent technology, learning methods to use it and use it properly will improve your capabilities. I don't consider 1 million percent that it replaces design. It's imagined to improve it. We will proceed to play our role to make sure it improves for our customers and our developers.
We just had District council with many (design) professionals. And once I take into consideration something like design intelligence, it just helps me bring a vision to life more quickly and share it with a client. But after all (customers come to us) to implement anything they need beyond that. If we will encourage them to make some decisions that they then change and deepen, that's unbelievable. We just make their work faster and maybe easier, but we’d never replace them.
