Will generative AI instruments assist individuals construct higher web sites, or will they simply fill the online with spam? With the current launch of Design Intelligence, a brand new web site 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 web site builders ship when prompted to create a generic spa web site: complicated, ugly web sites.
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 web site he wished to construct and the character of the model being featured. The ensuing web site featured AI-generated design, textual content, and pictures, however it regarded — for lack of a greater phrase — like a “real” website, with loads of choices for additional customization.
Gubbay argued that whereas different web site builders have “scrambled very quickly” to launch AI options, these rivals are asking, “How can we take this technology and use it to stand out to our customers?” whereas Squarespace has been asking one thing a little bit completely different: “How do we take all these latest technologies and really use it to help our customers stand out?”
Learn a transcript of our dialog under, edited for size and readability.
Once I think about an AI web site technology product, I think about it wanting like a immediate — like all the things originally of the demo. However right here, with each step, you would nonetheless go in and customise it. It seems to be, in some methods, like Squarespace at this time. So I’m curious: How did you determine the place you wished the AI to step in and generate parts of the web site versus the place you wished it to nonetheless be customizable by people?
We’ve taken our time to essentially take into consideration how this stuff come collectively. So now we have this precept in the case of constructing one thing like a web site or something visible: I do know it after I see it. And I believe that holds true for not simply professionals, however for anyone.
Making an attempt to construct a web site by means of a chatbot is de facto difficult. It’s like being in a automotive and typing in “turn left” or “turn right.” 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 then you definitely 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 know it when I see it” idea. And each time the crew got here and stated, “How about we add a chat? How about we do these things that everyone’s doing?” we have been like, “I don’t think that’s really the way people want to do this.” 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 a number of respect. You’re telling us one thing about who you might be, you’re entrusting us to take that and use it successfully for you. So we wished to make it possible for the ideas that we confirmed you in Blueprint would carry by means of into the system as nicely, so that you’d really feel like these selections you made up entrance weren’t only for naught.
You additionally talked about this concept of curation and expertise. Typically these issues are set in opposition to one another, however it sounds such as you’ve truly tried to construct curation into the expertise. You even stated that you’ve a curation engine. Are you able to speak a bit extra about what that appears like?
Our CEO says this typically; I believe it’s true: The truth that now we have textual content technology inside our web site device, it’s nice. However you would additionally go to Open AI and ChatGPT, sort in one thing, get the textual content, and duplicate and paste it [into Squarespace], and that’s nice as nicely. The problem lots of people have is understanding easy methods to immediate these engines the correct technique to truly get the correct output from them.
We’ve a really particular, proprietary viewpoint on how we immediate engines and the way we curate the content material that comes out of them, to get the feel and appear and the views that we expect are going to be actually helpful to our clients primarily based on our expertise, primarily based on what they’re telling us, and primarily based on our style.
AI imagery is a superb instance of that. We constructed our entire library of how we immediate [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 clients. We tag and curate these issues, after which we feed that again into the system once more.
We try this after we take a look at colour palettes; we try this after we take into consideration format switching. That’s the curation factor. It’s our design and inventive crew spending plenty of time fascinated by: How do these parts come collectively? How can we immediate engines? How can 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 need to do it. The entire level of coming to us is that you simply don’t need to do it.
It feels like a part of your strategy is, you’re not essentially attempting to construct all these fashions your self. You’re specializing in the way you current it and make it accessible and convey 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. We’ve 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 straightforward to create and customise web sites already. How do you suppose bringing extra generative AI into the method will change that ecosystem? Are Squarespace web sites going to look completely different than they do at this time?
I’d prefer to suppose that they’re going to look even higher. It’s very, essential for us, and it’s at all times been extremely necessary for us, that design is at all times on the forefront. Individuals come to Squarespace as a result of they consider 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.
Whenever you ask a query like that, it might indicate all of them look the identical not directly. 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 quicker, however we are going to at all times make it possible for it’s going to stick to the imaginative and prescient of what they need.
Squarespace works very carefully with designers; you simply wrapped up a complete occasion with design companions. How do you suppose designers, particularly Squarespace companions, must be a device 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 easy methods to leverage it and use it the correct means goes to boost what you’re in a position to do. I 1 million p.c don’t consider 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 clients 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 carry a imaginative and prescient to life quicker to share with a buyer. However in fact, [customers are coming to us] to implement all the issues that they need on prime of that. If we are able to encourage them with some selections that they may then change and go deeper on, unbelievable. We’re simply going to make the job quicker for them and perhaps simpler for them, however we’d by no means substitute them.
