AI-assisted web design: what AI does and what a person still does.

Why we talk about this openly

AI web design now covers everything from a site generated in thirty seconds to an agency that quietly uses AI and charges as if it did not. Neither tells you much about what you are buying.

So here is our actual split of the work, step by step, so you can judge it for yourself.

Where AI helps

Research is the first place. AI summarises competitor sites, search results and the client's existing material, so hours of reading become a short brief a person can check.

Page structure comes next. AI proposes a sitemap and the sections each page needs, which gives us a starting point to argue with rather than a blank page. It then writes first draft copy from the brief and the client's notes, removing the slowest part of most projects: waiting for copy.

AI produces several versions of headlines, layouts and calls to action, so there are more options to test in the time a person would make one. It writes repetitive templates, components and boilerplate code, so developers spend their time on what is specific to the site. It drafts service and location pages from a structured template, which makes a larger site affordable for a small business. And it flags broken links, missing alt text and inconsistent terms before a person reviews.

Where a person decides

AI is fast and fluent. It is also confident when it is wrong, and it has no stake in your business. Some decisions stay with a person.

Positioning is one: what the business is, who it is for and why someone should choose it. AI can suggest, but it cannot know. Facts are another. Every service, price, location, claim and number is checked against what the business actually does, because AI will invent a plausible detail if you let it.

Design judgement stays with a person too: hierarchy, spacing, what goes first and what gets cut. We design in Figma by hand, using AI for variants rather than final decisions. Accessibility is checked against the standard by a person, not assumed. Tracking, from GA4 and Tag Manager to consent and conversion events, is set up and tested by hand so the site is measured from day one. And anything legal, from privacy notices to regulated claims, is written and checked by a person.

Our review steps

Every page goes through the same checks before a client sees it. First a fact check, where each claim is traced to the client's own material or confirmed with them. Then a voice check, where copy is edited into the client's voice and the generic phrases AI tends to repeat are removed.

Next comes a duplication check. Pages that say the same thing in different words are merged or rewritten, because thin, copied pages hurt search performance. Then an accessibility pass, with automated checks first and a manual pass on keyboard, contrast and structure. Every form, button and conversion is tested in GA4 DebugView. Only then does the client review it, on a staging site, before anything goes live.

From 7 to about 37 indexable pages

Microcement South East, a specialist trade business in the South East, had 7 indexable pages. After the rebuild it has about 37.

The work covered a redesign in Figma, a rebuild on a staging site, service pages, a blog, SEO and lead tracking in Google Tag Manager. AI made the larger site affordable by drafting the structure and first versions of the new pages from a template. A person then checked every page against what the business actually does, where it actually works and what it actually charges, and cut or merged anything that repeated another page.

More pages is not the goal on its own. Each new page has to answer something a real customer searches for, and say something the other pages do not. That check is the part AI cannot do.

What this means for price and timeline

Because drafting and scaffolding are faster, we can quote less time for the same scope. Because a person still checks everything, we do not quote the near zero prices of fully generated sites.

A website sprint starts at £3,500 for up to five pages, delivered in two to three weeks. A full website starts at £7,500, a Shopify store at £6,000, and website care at £250 a month.

A sprint runs like this. In week one we agree what the site must do and gather the material. Design in Figma takes days, not weeks, with key pages reviewed with you. In weeks two and three we build on Webflow, Shopify or WordPress, on a staging site you can review. At launch, tracking, redirects and Search Console are already in place, so the site is measured from day one.

Will Google penalise AI-written content? Google's guidance focuses on whether content is helpful and accurate, not on how it was drafted. Thin, repetitive or wrong pages are the risk, whoever writes them, which is why every page is checked by a person.