Will generative AI instruments assist folks construct higher web sites, or will they simply fill the online with spam? With the latest launch of Design Intelligence, a brand new web site builder filled 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, after all, a setup for a demo of Design Intelligence, which started with a couple of prompts permitting Gubbay to specify issues just like the form of web site he needed to construct and the persona of the model being featured. The ensuing web site featured AI-generated design, textual content, and pictures, however it seemed — 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 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 beneath, edited for size and readability.
After I think about an AI web site era product, I think about it wanting like a immediate — like every thing at the start of the demo. However right here, with each step, you possibly can nonetheless go in and customise it. It appears, in some methods, like Squarespace as we speak. So I’m curious: How did you determine the place you needed the AI to step in and generate components of the web site versus the place you needed it to nonetheless be customizable by people?
We’ve taken our time to actually take into consideration how this stuff come collectively. So we’ve this precept on the subject 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.
Attempting to construct a web site by 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 while you see the factor you want, you wish to go, “OK, that’s it.” However then you definately don’t wish to be restricted by that; you need to have the ability to proceed enjoying. We would like 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 staff got here and mentioned, “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 grew to become the mannequin for us, and as soon as everybody adopted that, it grew to become very pure for all of us simply to suppose by that ideology.
It was crucial for us, additionally, that we deal with the purchasers’ data that they provide us with plenty 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 needed to ensure that the ideas that we confirmed you in Blueprint would carry by into the system as properly, 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 know-how. Typically these issues are set in opposition to one another, however it sounds such as you’ve truly tried to construct curation into the know-how. You even mentioned that you’ve 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 textual content era inside our web site software, it’s nice. However you possibly can 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 fantastic as properly. The problem lots of people have is understanding the right way to immediate these engines the fitting strategy to truly get the fitting output from them.
We’ve got a really particular, proprietary perspective on how we immediate engines and the way we curate the content material that comes out of them, to get the appear and feel and the views that we expect are going to be actually helpful 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 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 could 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.
We do this after we have a look at coloration palettes; we do this after we take into consideration structure switching. That’s the curation aspect. It’s our design and artistic staff spending numerous time excited about: How do these components come collectively? How will we immediate 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 preserve getting higher and higher, so that you don’t must do it. The entire level of coming to us is that you simply don’t must do it.
It appears like a part of your strategy is, you’re not essentially making an attempt 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 consultants in creating all these several types of content material. We leverage them. We leverage Google, we’re leveraging OpenAI, Anthropic. We’ve got 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 as we speak?
I’d prefer to suppose that they’re going to look even higher. It’s very, crucial for us, and it’s all the time been extremely vital 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 is not only 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 indicate all of them look the identical ultimately. And that’s completely not what we might need, proper? So I believe we’re going to give folks the instruments to get even higher outcomes quicker, however we are going to all the time ensure that it’s going to stick to the imaginative and prescient of what they need.
Squarespace works very carefully with designers; you simply wrapped up an entire occasion with design companions. How do you suppose designers, particularly Squarespace companions, ought to be taking a look at a software like AI? To what extent ought to they see it as a risk versus a chance?
I believe it’s vital to have a look at it as a chance. AI know-how is clearly an enormous a part of our future, and identical to any new know-how, studying the right way to leverage it and use it the fitting means goes to reinforce what you’re capable of do. I 1 million % don’t imagine it replaces design. It’s meant to reinforce 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 deliver a imaginative and prescient to life quicker to share with a buyer. However after all, [customers are coming to us] to implement the entire issues that they need on prime of that. If we will 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 possibly simpler for them, however we might by no means exchange them.
