In today’s AI era, the #1 burning question for business owner – should I use AI website or invest in a Custom website.
Yet, you buy a domain, write few prompts and your website goes live. What’s on your mind – why a business goes for AI build website.
Budget? – Not likely.
It’s “FAST Launch” for quick attention.
But ask yourself – does speed always wins outcomes? Absolutely not.
Most businesses do not fail because they lack a website. They fail because the website does not convert. This is where AI built websites fall short. Not because how they look but what they fail to support.
No doubt we use AI for productivity; Arguably, I am not fully against it. While you’re up to building your new website, for early ideas, AI could be great start – it works. But for real businesses, this often fails.
Speed Illusion by AI
AI reduces time to launch. However, they do not reduce time to results. Let me draw an example.
Two pizza shops launch online ordering.
Shop # 1 – uses AI Website
Shop # 2 – uses Custom Website.
After 3 months,
Shop # 1 – has traffic but order stays flat – no growth.
Shop # 2 – Fewer traffic than shop # 1. But orders grow week by week.
Ask me Why?
The custom site supports upsells, reorder flows, local SEO etc. On the other hand, the AI site does not support these flows by default.
Content Strategy Matters
Content connects people. AI tools assemble pages but not strategy. Consider a real website is a system – it converts traffic to business. Saying so, this requires planned decisions.
At 61WEB, every website we build, our content strategists work with web developer end-to-end. They discover which pages matter to respective client, which actions drive revenue or which paths users should follow.
AI tools do not ask you these questions – they only guess.
AI uses Generic UX Pattern
AI tools reuses patterns. As such, there is high chance your competitors use the same patterns. Though generic UX looks safe but is expensive – it will cost over time.
If users learn these patterns, they also learn how to ignore them. Custom UX overcomes frictions. For example, our ecommerce developers reduce cart frictions like fewer steps to order, clear pricing logic, location-based offer etc.
Small UX gains compound – a 10% lift in conversion can double revenue over a year at scale. Generic UX by AI rarely produces this increment.
Performance Debt
AI sites bring extra scripts, i.e. they add layers that you cannot control. These slow website load times and performance. Eventually, slow load times reduce ranking in google and sales for your business.
Quick stat – Per sec delay can reduce conversions by 7% approximately.
Developer can remove unnecessary scripts from custom build website. It improves Core Web Vitals, get improved rankings and higher revenue.
Performance is not cosmetic, it’s commercial.
SEO is not about text
Bear in mind, SEO is architecture, not text. AI can give content you want but it doesn’t design crawl paths. In simple words, SEO depends on structure, URLs, internal links, schema and index control etc.
This is fully technical work which requires someone’s intent. At 61WEB, we design SEO into the site architecture. This compounds over time. As such, your website traffic grows because the site is built to be crawled, not just read.
AI Website hard to scale
Your AI website templates will break if you want to scale it. Because AI templates is designed to handle simple flows. As your business evolves, the site becomes the bottleneck. They fail under complexity.
Scaling AI website increases workaround, increase in errors which degrade customer experience. Custom development supports change. This matters because businesses change.
Custom build gives you total control
AI ownership matters over time. When you build your AI website you must lock in AI tools and rent a platform. Apart from price, limit appears on your features. At certain point, website migration becomes expensive you rarely planned for.
Customer build website reduces long time risk – you own the code, choose hosting and decide how to scale.
Does your website truly position business as brand?
Brand differentiation is not visual – it’s structural. When someone visit website, you convey experiences how site behaves, unique flows, interactions and unique structure. This matters when you are in crowded markets. AI sites always flatten differentiation – it’s designed to behave same way.
If you want to stand out as brand in market – take the advantage of custom build website.
The Final Verdict
Well, AI built website are not wrong – I rather say it is incomplete. It’s not hurting you when test an idea, launch a basic presence while developing your own.
Think before your dive in – do you need speed more than results? If the answer is “No”, choose custom build website if you want to drive revenue, need flexible integrations, plan to scale and care about site performance, SEO and conversions.
At 61WEB, we craft and maintain custom websites for businesses. We not only building page, we build system that ticks in every aspects of your business grows. Write to us support@61web.com.au if you plan to build new website or revamp your existing one.