Any AI Can Generate A Website, But an AI Coach Can Help You Build Yours
The future of website builders in the face of the generative AI wave is uncertain. At SimDif, however, our compass remains steady: we are convinced that an alternative that is both ethical and profitable is not only possible, but necessary.
For nearly three years, we have been actively integrating AI into the heart of our tools, to filter unwanted sites, support our helpline, power BabelDif (our translation platform), and above all to create Kai, an assistant that guides users step by step in improving their websites.
This experience has given us intimate knowledge of both the power of these technologies and their limitations. And it is precisely this expertise that strengthens our conviction: in general, and in the creation of online tools, AI should serve and empower the user, not replace them.
Our vision for SimDif: Using Socratic AI to build authentic, high-ranking websites
What is Socratic AI in Web Design?
Unlike Generative AI, which builds a generic website for the user, Socratic AI acts as a coach. It asks questions to draw out the user's unique knowledge of their industry or field of expertise, ensuring the resulting website is original and authentic.
1. The Paradigm Shift: From Writing Code to Conversational Design
There will always be individuals and businesses wanting to present their activities online. And there will always be a need for tools to help them structure that message.
What is changing is the interface. Code and complex UIs are fading away. We are entering the era of dialogue: a conversation between user and machine that builds the result. What some call "Vibe Coding"[1] promises fluid creation where intention alone is enough to generate the product.
This is technically fascinating. We ourselves test these approaches with tools like Google AI Studio or Replit to create small applications that are already impressive. This technology is not yet mature enough to create a service like ours, but that will come quickly.
However, applying this logic abruptly to a novice user trying to build their own website is a trap. Here's why.
2. The Problem with One-Click AI Website Generators
Basing a commercial solution on the promise of a "finished website in 3 prompts" is a perilous approach, even toxic, for two fundamental reasons.
Carelessly AI-Generated Content Hurts Your SEO and Brand
The AI we're talking about, Large Language Models (LLMs), are trained on the vast corpus of the web. Without specific information, they produce an average of what already exists.
But the value of an entrepreneur building their website lies in what makes them distinctive: their experience, their market (potentially local), their personality, the specific needs of their customers. AI doesn't know these details. It sometimes hallucinates to fill in the blanks. A site generated without user specific information is a site that looks like every other site. And a site that looks like every other site doesn't convert.
The Risks of Misrepresenting Your Business
Users may be seduced by attractive images and smoothly generated text. The risk, and frequent result, is that they become passive, accepting marketing copy that doesn't match the reality of their business.
A website that misrepresents the reality of a business is a time bomb, for the reputation of the business and for the reputation of the tool that created it.
3. The Loss of Control: Why You Can’t Edit AI Code
The least visible argument, but perhaps the most critical, concerns the user's ownership of the tool.
The "Take It or Leave It" Trap: Why Users Abandon AI Sites
Faced with an instantly generated website, the user is forced into an immediate binary judgment. And because they haven't participated in the building process, they have no attachment to the result.
This creates a fragile experience. By pinning the entire value of a platform as rich as a website builder on a single automated result, the user is primed to leave if the "magic" isn't perfect. They quit before they've even had the chance to discover the editor's real capabilities. The clearer path, paved with helpful tools and sound advice, is left untraveled.
The Black Box: You Can't Fix What You Didn't Build
If a user approves a site entirely produced by AI, they find themselves facing a product that seems finished but whose structure and rationale they don't understand. They haven't had the opportunity to consider whether they should highlight one aspect of their business over another, or phrase their tagline one way or another.
At the inevitable moment when they want to change something, they'll fumble in frustration, facing a logic they don't understand and a tool they haven't had time to explore.
Prompting Isn't the Future of Web Design
Believing that users can correct their site simply by "talking" to the AI is highly optimistic. The user is neither a prompt engineer nor a web designer. Most often, they won't know what to ask for or how to phrase it to get the precise modification they want.
Yes, website building will, in the near future, be an iterative dialogue where the author directs the machine. But without having built their own experience as an author, they won't know how to formulate their requests. And the machine, without knowing the project's details, won't be able to offer relevant advice either.
There is a way to solve this equation: make the user competent and the machine truly useful.
4. The Value of Time: Why Instant Websites Don't Work for Real Businesses
This is the heart of our vision.
Creating a website isn't just a technical task. It's a process of intellectual maturation. Whatever the tool, the author needs time to:
• Understand their own needs and those of their customers
• Refine their offering
• Articulate their message
An entrepreneur starting a web project doesn't know, by definition, what that project will truly become. Offering them an instant solution means robbing them of this crucial stage of reflection.
AI that does "everything, right now" short-circuits the journey necessary for success, both for the website and for the business.
It's by building their website that users also build their business.
Our technology must serve this human process, not attempt to replace it.
5. The SimDif Solution: An AI Coach for Better Websites
Our goal is not to use AI to "prefabricate" a website based on a global average. It's to provide a Socratic AI[2]: a coach to ask the questions which draw out the user’s own latent knowledge, suggest organization, and guide them step-by-step toward a website that reflects their reality.
SimDif was built in this philosophy. Here's how our method works in practice:
The SimDif Approach in Practice
SimDif never forces the use of AI-based tools. From the first steps, and throughout the journey to publication, users can choose between a manual or assisted workflow.
A Smarter, More Personalized Creation Process
=> The Initial Interview: Establishing Context Before The Build
First, we gather some essential information: language, type of business, location, target customer profile.
Some of our competitors use this data to generate a ready-made site immediately. We do something different with it.
Second, we create a foundation for personalized guidance: verifying the fit between SimDif and the user's expectations, and filtering out technically incompatible or unwanted projects like scams.
=> The Architect: Structuring Ideas for Google and Readers
Based on the information gathered, we propose a clear structure: the recommended number and type of pages, organized to present the subject effectively. Each block includes tailored advice within its context and suggestions for what the user could write.
But here's our essential difference: we don't generate the content.
• We structure the site in a relevant way
• We offer contextual advice and suggestions in each block
• The decision and the writing remain in the user's hands
And in return, without realizing it, the user programs the machine so it can help them when they need it.
But, what to do with the AI's suggestions?
1. Evaluate
The AI suggests; the user decides. This first step invites them to think about how to structure their message.
For those familiar with website creation: content organization is key to a website's success, both for visitors and for search engines. Getting a novice to consider this question practically rather than theoretically is real added value.
2. Find creative flow
All approaches are valid: copy-paste, write from scratch, dictation, shorthand, a bullet list…
The writing assistance tools built into SimDif can transform the user's ideas into clear text, whatever method they choose.
=> The Theme Designer
From a color scheme, a header image, or a logo, the AI generates three personalized designs. The user chooses one, gets three variations, then refines fonts and details.
The result: a bespoke starting theme, and motivation.
SimDif Themes alter style, not structure. Unlike most website builders, changing themes in SimDif never breaks the content.[3].
In This Spirit, Already in Place in SimDif :
=> The Editor and Its Writing Tools
SimDif, as those who've built with it know, is already designed to support users, both in the website creation process and in the advice that marks every step along the way.
The writing assistance tools include: correction, tone adjustment (professional, friendly), a "My Style" feature that draws from already-approved text, and "Expand", which transforms raw notes into structured text.
The beauty of this approach: the model learns from the user's own journey to better support them.
Another good example:
=> Kai Step-by-Step has been guiding users (since 2023) through nine questions whose answers use the full context of the user's site to:
• Review the content of the user's homepage
• Scan pages to identify missing topics
• Improve block titles
• Suggest a good H1 title for any page
• Write an engaging meta description
• Identify missing pages
• Suggest a good site title
• Suggest a good site name (for Google SERPs)
• Help the user find a domain name
In Kai, answers aren't just handed down as absolute truths. Instead, they're offered as friendly suggestions that the user can choose to use or not, right into their site. The more detailed and rich the content is, the more helpful and relevant these suggestions become.
=> The Optimization Assistant
When activated (it's optional), the assistant reviews all blocks on every page each time the user publishes:
• Checking key SEO metadata
• Making recommendations for getting the most out of pages and blocks
• Providing beginner-friendly tips
=> POP: Professional Search Engine Optimization
SimDif's partnership with PageOptimizer Pro[4] allows users to access a recognized SEO tool, integrated into SimDif at a fraction of the usual price. POP analyzes the competition and indicates precisely which phrases to use, where to place them, and how much content to write for each page.
What’s Next?
Building AI That Learns to Help You Better
Everything we've described here, the structured guidance, the contextual suggestions, the writing tools that learn from the user's existing content, is part of a larger vision.
All of the work and knowledge gathered into SimDif today is teaching our AI how to be a better assistant tomorrow:
• A decade of user support conversations showing how we guide without dictating
• The pedagogical approach that helps users understand the why before the how
• Our Socratic methodology that draws out latent knowledge rather than replacing it
• The FairDif philosophy of adjusting prices to local purchasing power worldwide
• Real patterns of successful website creation from hundreds of thousands of users globally
As conversational AI becomes more capable, SimDif's assistant will too. But it will retain what matters: respect for your role as the person who actually understands your business.
The Future of Website Creation
New website formats will emerge. The way we interact with website builders will continue to evolve, becoming more conversational, more adaptive, and more context-aware.
We will play our part in this evolution, designing formats that adapt to visitor intent, that work across emerging platforms, that remain fundamentally the user's to shape and control. But these innovations will only matter if they result in a website that is genuinely reflective of the user's business, written in its voice, structured around what its customers actually need to know.
That requires the involvement of the users. Our job is to make that involvement as productive and rewarding as possible, with tools that align meaningful effort with actual success.
We're building AI that helps people discover that they're capable of making websites worth visiting.
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Notes and References
[1]: Vibe Coding: Term popularized by Andrej Karpathy to describe a programming approach where you describe what you want in natural language and AI generates the code.
• See Andrej Karpathy's historic post on Vibe Coding https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383
[2]: Socratic: Philosophical method attributed to Socrates, consisting of bringing forth truths from people's minds through questioning rather than direct teaching. The idea of a "Socratic AI" is part of a broader reflection on the role of digital tools in human cognition.
• See Andy Clark's early work on the extended mind (1988) for the foundation of the extended cognition concept (Extended Mind Thesis): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mind_thesis
• More recent and applied: Titan's Project 2024, Socratic principles applied to creating a chatbot: https://www.titanthinking.eu/post/exploring-titan-s-approach-to-integrating-socratic-thinking-and-ai-in-chatbot-dialogue
[3]: Content/Presentation Separation: A fundamental principle for programmers and the web in general, often ignored by modern site creators who link templates and structure. Somewhat technical, somewhat humorous, a good article: https://storyneedle.com/separating-content-and-presentation-moving-past-fud/
[4]: PageOptimizer Pro (POP): SEO optimization tool based on competitive analysis. From our friend Kyle Roof: https://pageoptimizer.pro
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Further Reading (Sources and Inspiration)
SimDif is, of course, not alone in defending this vision of technology in service of humanity ("Human-Centric AI").
Maggie Appleton: A frequently cited metaphor on the necessity of preserving human agency in the "Dark Forest" of the generative web.
https://maggieappleton.com/ai-dark-forest
Jakob Nielsen: Somewhat technical, for UX/UI enthusiasts, on the new AI paradigm and the articulation barrier. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ai-paradigm/
The IKEA Effect: Why effort leads to product attachment.
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ikea-effect
Anthropic On AI Ethics and Human-Centered Design,
Core Views on AI Safety: Already 2 years old… Anthropic's vision (Anthropic is the company behind Claude, one of the most interesting competitors of ChatGPT) on AI safety, an explanation of their empirical approach and their philosophy that AI should be an assistant rather than a replacement. An excellent article if you want to better understand what LLMs are.
https://www.anthropic.com/news/core-views-on-ai-safety.
Tristan Harris & Center for Humane Technology
On ethical technology design
https://www.humanetech.com/impact-and-story
On Augmentation Rather Than Replacement
Ethan Mollick, "Co-Intelligence": A Wharton professor, he explores how humans and AI can work together effectively.
- Book summaries:
In French: https://sobrief.com/fr/books/co-intelligence
In English: https://jeremierostan.substack.com/p/co-intelligence-by-ethan-mollick
Douglas Engelbart, "Augmenting Human Intellect":
The foundational text (1962) on the idea that technology should augment human capabilities rather than replace them. It's long and old (?), but just to say that the ideas we defend are not new… even if our application of these principles is very current.
https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/138
On SimDif and Our Approach
Our charter for ethical AI use:
https://www.simple-different.com/en/ethical-ai
FairDif, our purchasing power parity index:
https://www.simple-different.com/en/fairdif
Why you are the best person to create your website:
https://www.simdif.com/en/best-person-create-website
