We vaguely remember a time when the internet was dark, simple, and extremely slow. As years went by, every aspect of it improved staggeringly, and web design made the internet a fun, colorful, aesthetically pleasing virtual place. But development can’t be stopped. It’s a constant. So now, we are trying to reach new limits when it comes to technology. One of those aspects is artificial intelligence. In 2018, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated that artificial intelligence will be more transformative to humanity than electricity.
AI is getting integrated into every industry out there, making it more efficient and impressive to people. According to studies, the AI industry will be valued at $118.6 billion by 2025. Even though AI has been around for some time, the industry is still considered to be in its infancy and the lack of experts on the subject is pulling back the potential development.
However, so far we have achieved quite some things that can be used in enriching the web design and leaving a sparkling impression on the customers visiting the sites. More and more websites are using the benefits of AI which raises the question: Is AI the future of web design?
Beginning of AI
At the beginning of AI, people were far too ambitious in their research agenda because they were trying to give machines humanly traits like reasoning, creativity, and learning from experience. Somewhat, we succeeded particularly in the part of machine learning, but still, the limitations are quite big. One of the first robots that was built was the Automated Trumpet Player by Johann Friedrich Kaufmann in 1810. The robot was able to imitate the sound of the trumpet and had a human-like appearance. It was an advanced robot for that period because it was able to blow two tones at a time.
A bit later, many chess-playing programs emerged and scientists were always convinced that no machine can have an advantage to the human mind. This was of course disproven by 1990 when multiple world-class chess players lost to a program named Deep Thought. It was much more powerful than people anticipated.
Today, machines with AI can do things beyond our immediate capacity. And that limit is constantly being pushed as time passes by.
Artificial Design Intelligence Systems
Artificial Design Intelligence is an AI that is used in the web design industry, for identifying and implementing different web design trends. So basically, ADI systems are technologies that can create websites on their own. The users of the technologies are specifying their needs and the ADI systems are producing the personalized design. There are many platforms out there that have ADI to some extent and are working towards developing it further.
This changed a lot for web development since traditionally, creating a user interface took a lot of creativity and a lot of work. The complex process started with a team of designers deciding on their best ideas, writing them down, exploring different possibilities, setting a wireframe, translating it into HTML, A/B testing, and much more. This process required a lot of time and effort from web developers.
AI shifted the industry by a lot allowing developers to focus more on creativity and creating better functionalities that result in great user experience. One of the first AI web design technologies was The grid. It used AI to help web designers create customized websites that fit their specific business needs.
Nowadays, there are many such software and tools.
- Wix ADI– it’s quite easy to create your website using Wix. And the best part is that you can do it without any technical knowledge whatsoever. No coding experience, or web design knowledge. AI plays an important role in building websites tailored to customers’ preferences, but the opportunities for the future are still quite high.
- Firedrop– another AI-powered website builder that additional has machine learning. Firedrop has an AI assistant Sacha who helps with designing and managing websites. They even have an option to design a website automatically without the usual drag and drop feature. Sacha is still very dependent on human input, but still quite impressive.
- Adobe Sensei– is powering Adobe tools and is an AI and machine learning framework. It allows users more options for example due to the face recognition software that enables users to edit facial features much easier.
AI usage currently in Web Design
There is more to web design than mere creativity and looks. It takes knowing the best practices of design and the ways of implementing them to be a good web designer. With the usage of AI, regular people are getting the opportunity to access those practices with a simple implementation. This way, people can create personalized websites with very limited web designing knowledge. Some of the currently used AI assistants at the moment are Siri from Apple, Alexa from Amazon, Cortana from Microsoft, and Google’s Assistant.
Websites like Wix or Squarespace are just some of the examples of website building platforms that use those ADI systems as their leverage. They are offering many ADI-generated templates that users can edit and customize to their specific needs. All without, or minimal help, from web designers.
AI also provides analysis and data mining for SEO. AI that has the power to predict what users want is becoming more complex and smarter.
When it comes to improving UX, AI has done a lot in this aspect. It allows web designers to transform the sites into meaningful and rich experiences for the customers. The biggest examples of this are the chatbots that can be found on almost any type of website nowadays. Interestingly, it is predicted that AI-powered chatbots will save businesses $8billion in costs by 2022. By using AI in this way, a lot of tasks are automated leaving time for employees to focus on more creative tasks.
The AI possibilities are still quite limited, but that won’t be the case for a long time since the predictions for the whole AI industry are quite promising.
Future of AI in Web Design
If you are a web designer and you’re reading this fearing that you will become obsolete in the future, you’re highly likely wrong. AI will continue to disrupt the web design industry among others, but real designers will still be needed.
AI can even help web designers out in the future, making them more efficient and assisting them in the web designing processes. Web designers will still be needed to define the more creative aspects of the work, and provide that human touch to the user experience. In the end, designers are there when clients need to find more “out of the box” innovative ideas, and that will continue to be the case probably. Platforms like Wix are providing more or less the same types of templates for everybody, but the needs of all businesses are not going to fit in those types of templates.
The future is unknown, but AI will for sure be a part of it. Web designers will have to accept the changes that come their way and use them to their advantage. Even if the role of the designers becomes the act of integrating all the different AI-powered platforms and making them co-exist on a website.
Conclusion
As previously mentioned, the artificial intelligence industry is still in its infancy phase which means that the best is yet to come. We can predict all we want, but there is only one sure way to know what the future will bring and that is to observe what is happening as time passes by. We will move away from a one-size-fits-all methodology towards extreme personalization and customization. Current statistics and breakthroughs in technology are indicating that AI will play an imperative role in web design for sure. To what extent, we should wait and see. One thing is for sure, the potential of AI is extremely high and it can bring many changes in the way web designing operates as an industry.
