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Generative AI and web development seem tailor-made for each other. Web design combines coding, creative text, graphics, and overall design. These are all tasks that AI performs quite well. This article is a 2026 update of an article first published in 2025. A lot has changed.
Last year, when I set out to find the best AI-based website builders, I expected to see all of these capabilities wrapped around hosting dashboards. What I found was nothing close. Those that did include AI features barely worked. One vendor, Hostinger, had a chatbot interface that showed real promise, but it failed almost every test. Not this year. This year, it's our top recommendation.
Once again, I built test sites using each service. To ensure each site faced an equal challenge, I decided to model them on a business called "Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective."
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There were design notes drawn from the Sherlock concept: consulting and private detective themes could be applied; dark academia would be an ideal color and design choice; and deerstalker hats and magnifying glasses are clearly appropriate iconography. Sherlock Holmes is so well known that most AI engines should be able to derive insights from the reference alone.
All, except Squarespace, have viable AI offerings. Hostinger and GoDaddy have offerings good enough that I think you could probably rely on them to run your site. The others are close and just need to keep improving to get solid offerings.
My big criticism of all the offerings is that their text-to-image capabilities are mediocre. Use the AI website builders for site structure, but use a tool like ChatGPT's image tool or Google's Nano Banana to generate your images and upload them to the AI builders. For $20/month for either service, you'll get great image generation capabilities that the AI website builders don't come close to replicating.
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Last year, none of the AI website builders had any clue that AIs could write code. This year, GoDaddy's tool gets it. It went in and modified CSS as if it were a junior coder to whom I dedicated the assignment.
Overall, last year my message was to stay away from the AI website builders and maybe use ChatGPT to write some code for your website. This year, my message is that some of the AI website builders really are good enough to start using to build a website.
Let's dig into the individual website builders. But before we do, I want to note that all of these are from excellent hosting providers in their own right. I'm just evaluating their AI components or alternatives.
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Please also note that when I talk about a website builder, I'm referring to a category of service. Some of the hosting providers call their website builders "Website Builder," with initial caps. That's how they brand their website builder service.
I have been looking forward to doing this review all year, and Hostinger doesn't disappoint...mostly. Last year, when I tested out Hostinger Horizons, it was the only AI website builder that "worked" via a chat interface. The only problem is that it didn't really work. It was really a concept prototype that probably shouldn't have been offered to paying customers. But it was visionary, and none of the other hosting providers had anything similar.
This year, everyone (except Squarespace) offers a chatbot interface for web building, copying Hostinger's rather obvious lead. That said, a subjective test run suggests that Hostinger is the best of them, at least for now.
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To be clear, Horizon has its failings. Its text-to-image generator is mediocre at best, but so are the AI image generators in all the other providers' tools. Horizon doesn't entirely follow directions. It needs to be corrected and reprompted. And while the AI claims it's following instructions for code editing, the edit never actually makes it into the code.
But then there are the wins. The best example is how well it reworked the Cases page, a page designed to show off Sherlock's success stories. When originally generated, it was a weird hodgepodge of cards splattered on the page.
A few simple prompts later, and Sherlock had a showpiece that displayed success stories cleanly and attractively.
To get from the original version to the version above requires a lot of code editing and changes, which the AI would have failed at miserably last year, but did a great job with this year. While I might want to change up the pictures a bit, the execution was absolutely on track and proves that this kind of AI web building experience is actual viable.
The AI implementation in the GoDaddy website builder -- now called Airo -- has come a long way in the last year. I had a chance to use the beta version of the chatbot interface to create and modify a website.
When I got started, Airo asked me to describe my site. I used the same Sherlock description I've used for other sites. It immediately asked me the site's primary purpose, offering choices that were very appropriate for Sherlock. In an example of how on track the new AI is, Airo asked me what tone the site should convey for its theme. It offered:
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It proposed a rough design that wasn't bad. But then it did something that gave me a chuckle. When it asked what I thought of the design, it gave me the option to make changes or click "The game is afoot" to go ahead. I mean, right?
Unfortunately, the delight over the AI's general literacy AI had to give way to some challenges.
Image selection in the GoDaddy web builder is a combination of lookups in the Getty image database and fairly adequate text-to-image generation. If this were still 2024, I would have said the text-to-image quality was pretty good. For 2026, it was weak and sometimes stubbornly non-responsive.
For example, logo design was a bit of a bust. Try as I might, I could not get the AI to generate a wide image or properly fit the logo in the header. My recommendation would be to use Google's Nano Banana for most of your image work, save your GoDaddy AI credits, and then upload the images into the GoDaddy website builder.
The AI has a chatbot interface that is quite functional. It's a little slow, but it works quite well. You can describe most text and layout changes, and the AI will carry them out. The only problem, and I think this might be due to the beta, is that when I pasted in a screenshot of what I wanted the AI to do, it hung, and I had to refresh the page.
A real bonus is that this AI will generate or modify actual code. There is a Code button at the top of the screen that opens a solid code editor (complete with syntax coloring). You can tell the AI to make changes. and it does. I had it split apart some CSS into separate blocks, and the AI completed it quickly and easily.
The free trial limits credits.
If you yearn for the old-style web builders, you can choose Edit mode and then click in various blocks and cards on screen and make edits directly on the page. You can also tell the AI to create text for those blocks. The only gotcha is that even if you click into a block, you have to describe the block to the AI so it knows where to put the text. I'd prefer a tighter linkage where the AI chatbot interface is aware of what's been selected on the page.
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We should talk briefly about AI credits. After about 45 minutes of testing the web builder, I got a message saying I ran out of credits. Each AI action seems to take about three credits, so I burned through them fairly quickly. GoDaddy says that when the service leaves beta, even the free trial will have more credits. Once they upped my credits for a Starter Plan, I experienced no more restrictions.
Higher-level plans offer even more AI capabilities, including services that work with e-commerce sites. GoDaddy also says they're readying a professional AI vibe coding tool similar to Lovable, which will be available to customers who purchase the plans that support it.
Last year, I ended my evaluation with the statement, "Calling anything on their website builder service AI, even their phrase chooser, is a real stretch." This year, they have real AI; it's all over their web builder, it works pretty well (except for image generation), and it even generates CSS and code. That's a lot of improvement in one year.
Wix has long been known for its integrated website builder. Recently, however, the company came out with a completely overhauled site builder option called Wix Harmony, powered by the Aria AI engine. This is separate from the Astro AI Wix introduced last year. That version was embedded in the website builder. Harmony and Aria are basically a chat interface for web development.
And, guess what? It mostly works.
For example, the site started off in a light gray color. I told the Aria chatbot to "change the color scheme to dark academia," and it did. It had some issues with link and font colors that later needed to be modified, but the initial update was quick and easy.
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When I wanted to change those link and font colors, it wasn't able to do it automatically. But it was smart enough to provide clear instructions, beginning with "You can change the color of your selected text by following these steps," followed by a numbered list of steps. Rather than wondering what to do, I had a guide right there. Nice.
That's not to say everything was perfect. Although I told the site builder that my site was named "Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective," Wix created a logo for "London Detective Consulting."
Speaking of the logo, the image generator had some problems creating a logo.
The first, third, and fourth tries mangled the text. The second try produced a magnifying glass with two handles. I finally chose the fifth try simply because it was close enough. I can't recommend using Wix for logo generation right now. Instead, use the free version of Google's Nano Banana 2, in Gemini. It's much more reliable for text generation.
That said, when I asked Wix to create a hero image of a "Victorian-era London terraced house" and replace the guy in the suit originally provided with "Make this image look like Sherlock Holmes with the Deerstalker hat and a pipe," it did a good job.
Wix Harmony isn't yet ideal. But it definitely shows promise, and I think it has come far enough that you actually could use it to design your website and get most of the way there with AI help. That's a big jump from what we had only a year ago.
Unfortunately, 10Web's AI website builder seems to have taken a step back from what it could do last year. Last year, it automatically generated a near-perfect illustration for Home and Legacy & Mission pages. This year, image generation is effective in some places and nearly impossible in others.
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It decided that my site would be called LogicDetective. When I asked it to change the site name, it refused. This is technically an artifact of how WordPress builds sites, in that the site's internal name can't be changed once chosen. But 10Web's AI didn't offer to change the site header or otherwise display a different name, nor did it ask me what I wanted the site's name to be when I started the project.
For example, this section of the home page started with no images. I told it to create three appropriate images above each section, and it did it. That's a point in 10Web's favor.
On the other hand, the AI builder created this section, complete with the giant white empty block on the right. No amount of attempting to convince the AI to fill that block was successful. Instead, the AI decided to place an icon next to the words "Analytical Capabilities," but even after I pasted in a screenshot of the section with the empty white block, the AI refused to put anything there. Worse, you can't click on it and modify the image. What you tell it in chat is all you get.
I tried to find a logo designer, but couldn't. So I asked the AI, "Can you help me design a logo?" The response I got was less than helpful. I was told, "I can only help with building and editing your WordPress website on 10Web. Please ask me about website changes or WordPress features!"
Well, OK then.
The site also tried too hard. When I launched the web builder, it asked me about my site. I pasted in my short description of Sherlock's consulting detective agency, and it proposed a huge site map.
The font was small, and gray on gray, making it hard to read. 10Web would have been much better served suggesting a few items -- and then letting the user ask for more with the chatbot.
Unfortunately, the AI is also slow. Every request to the AI took noticeable minutes to return a result. Even though 10Web's regular hosting service is quite good, its AI elements still need some work. If you use the AI to augment 10Web's traditional web builder in small doses, it works quite well. But don't rely solely on the AI to build your site.
If you've ever watched a YouTube video, you've seen a Squarespace promotion. The company is known for its hosting service and good-looking website templates.
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Even after a year, Squarespace is still sticking with what it knows best: template-driven designs and profiles. To be fair, this template-driven approach has defined the company, and they do it very well. But from a design perspective, there is no AI whatsoever.
The lone exception is that you can click in a text area and describe what you want the AI to write. Even here, though, the AI has no sense of design. I asked for a description for a block that supports only about 20 words, but the AI just kept writing and writing.
Initial website setup still gives you the opportunity to choose a "brand personality" for your site. You can choose from Professional, Playful, Sophisticated, Friendly, Bold, Quirky, and Innovative. Once you make that selection, Squarespace gives you six pre-canned layouts to choose from. You can then choose the pages you want on your site, decide on colors, and so forth.
The company has a custom GPT, available from the ChatGPT GPT store. But this is mostly just a launcher into the Squarespace environment. It appears to be there just so the company can derive some traffic from the ChatGPT environment.
When I spoke to the Squarespace communications team, I was told they put a lot of attention into AI through Beacon AI, which they describe as "An AI-powered business partner built directly into the Squarespace platform that makes smart recommendations to help your business succeed at every stage of its growth." This is a hosting-adjacent service. It includes features like an AI visibility scanner, an SEO scanner, an AI-driven broken link scanner, an AI description writer, and an AI FAQ composer.
Squarespace makes it easy to set up a great-looking site with a few clicks. But it's the result of a lot of well-considered, pre-canned options packaged into a helpful wizard. While they offer text generation in text-edit fields and their library of AI business helpers, they offer no AI design support at all.
Last year, I recommended ChatGPT over the AI website builders because their AIs just weren't ready for prime time. This year, I can suggest that, at the very least, Hostinger's and GoDaddy's offerings will get you far enough to be worth checking out. They're fairly solid, and while you still might have to resort to traditional tools for certain results, I think they're tools you can use.
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Wix and 10Web are on track for similar offerings, but I would stick with their traditional web builders for now. Those are quite good. Squarespace is a really great service, but its AI offering seems more like a marketing manager desperately trying to check off the "AI" option than offering a real AI tool. Use Squarespace for what Squarespace does best, but don't count on it for AI.
I had high hopes for this category last year. This year, we've seen some vendors step up and use AI effectively in their offerings. Next year, I'm sure they'll get even better. It is really amazing to see how much has improved in less than 12 months.
Have you tried any of the platforms mentioned? If so, how well did the AI features work for you? Let us know in the comments below.
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