Where is Webflow going with AI?

Generative artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly prevalent in the web industry. Content creation, design, development… every week, new tools emerge or add features powered by AI.

And Webflow is no exception, with the recent launch of a new feature: the Webflow AI Site Builder, which allows, from a simple prompt, to generate a first draft of a complete Webflow site including design, development, copywriting, and even animation.

So, between promise and reality, we tested it, compared it to other solutions, and asked ourselves the question: Where is Webflow going with AI?

A question we’re going to answer today.

1. Introduction: AI are everywhere in 2025

Research, content creation, medical diagnostics, and more—it's no surprise to anyone that we're currently living through a technological revolution where AI is everywhere.

Investments in AI have increased significantly. French companies, for example, have considerably raised their spending on AI solutions, going from €335,790 in 2023 to €1.78 million in 2024 (Source: Alliancy, French companies' investments in AI rising sharply).

These figures reflect massive adoption, with nearly 80% of companies currently using AI and over 70% employing generative AI (Source: State of AI by McKinsey).

Although the widespread adoption of AI still raises questions about energy, security, or ethical issues, there's no doubt that artificial intelligence is not merely a trend—companies have become dependent on it.

AI has therefore become a priority for software publishers, with 74% considering AI one of their technological priorities since 2023 (Source EY: Top 250 French software publishers - 14th edition).

“As artificial intelligence increasingly becomes a strategic lever in businesses, companies have increased their dependency on these solutions by nearly 430% between 2023 and 2024.”

2. Webflow and AI

To keep up with the trend, for almost two years now, nearly every SaaS has announced AI-boosted features, including Webflow, notably:

• A help center integrated into the development interface
• The ability to create static or CMS content
• Translation (Localization)
• Even generating Alt descriptions for images

These features, while not disruptive, set a clear logic: making developers' daily tasks easier directly within the IDE.
But in early 2025, Webflow changed direction with a more disruptive announcement: the AI Site Builder.

3. The Webflow AI Site Builder

Announced by Bryan T. Chou, one of Webflow's co-founders, the AI Site Builder generates a complete site from a prompt and few pre-defined preferences.

Technically, Bryan explains that the tool was trained on thousands of high-quality web designs, allowing the AI to select the most suitable sections based on the brief. The stated goal isn't to create just another AI builder but to offer high-quality AI site generation aligned with Webflow's premium positioning.

But concretely, how does it work? And importantly, what's the result?

Let's test it together.

3.1 AI Site Builder Demo

Step 1: Launching the Builder

You access the tool from the Webflow dashboard when creating a new project.

Step 2: Define the project and describe the site via a prompt‍

Two quick steps through a multi-step form: first, defining the project type; second, describing it.
In our example, we chose to create a site offering AI services, with the description:
“We help companies navigate and leverage AI and the latest technology innovations to optimize their business strategies, improve efficiency, and stay ahead of industry trends.”

Step 3: Initial Design

We begin personalizing the project by refining prompt instructions: visual style, colors, brand tone, etc. This step can be manual or delegated to the AI.

Step 4: Automatic Generation

Webflow generates an initial homepage version, accompanied by its style guide (colors, typography, etc.).

Step 5: Design Adjustment‍

Before finalizing the site generation, the AI Site Builder offers a design adjustment step. Here, you can fine-tune elements to better match your preferences or brand identity:

• Theme choice: regenerate a new design or keep the proposed theme
• Color palette: change primary project colors
• Typography: adjust fonts for headings, paragraphs, etc.
• Sections: add or remove certain sections
• Images: replace automatically generated visuals
• UI Components: customize buttons, forms, inputs, dropdown menus, cards, etc.
• Rounded corners: adjust the roundness of blocks or buttons

You can also modify the initial prompt to start from a different base.

Step 6 (optional): Site Evolution‍

Once the base is set, you can:

• Generate new pages
• Add additional sections/layouts
• Adapt designs based on initially selected theme variants

But before sharing our full opinion at the end of this article, technically, what's the AI-generated site like?

3.2 Technical Analysis of AI Site Builder Generation

✅ Positives:

• Automatic generation of images and animations
• Well-structured semantic HTML
• Built-in responsive design
• Native use of CSS variables (though their management can quickly become complex—fortunately, a style guide is provided)
• Generation of reusable components
• Personalization via theme variants, maintaining a no-code logic

❌ Areas for Improvement:

• The CSS class system uses a new Webflow framework, neither Client-First nor Lumos (cf. Bryant Chou’s tweet)
• No automatic creation of CMS items (likely linked to Webflow’s pricing model?)
• Some display bugs with certain layouts or animations
• AI still heavily constrained, sometimes producing unsuitable results or repetitive designs in multiple attempts

3.3 Differences from Other AI Builders

Certain Webflow AI Site Builder concepts might remind you of Relume’s site builder, particularly generating pages via prompts and selecting sections/layouts from a library. But the key difference is that Relume is a third-party tool: it enables team collaboration, iteration, and challenging sections or pages before moving to Webflow.

Webflow’s Site Builder is directly integrated into the IDE. It aims to be more structured, more "definitive" in its proposals, and less flexible at this stage.

Its logic aligns more closely with Lovable, which pushes site generation purely via prompts. But there's an important nuance: Lovable allows more iterative exchanges with AI to adjust, refine, regenerate—whereas Webflow currently has a linear workflow: one prompt → one design, then manual adjustments in the builder.

But concretely, what do we think of it?

4. Webflow and AI: our Opinion

After testing it and observing its adoption online one month post-launch, here's our opinion, divided into two parts:

1. Our opinion on the Webflow AI Site Builder
2. Our perspective on Webflow’s overall AI strategy

4.1 Opinion on Webflow AI Site Builder

From an operational perspective, the AI Site Builder today seems like a tool suitable only for an independent working on a small project — like a landing page or mini responsive site.

That said, using it still requires a minimum of Webflow knowledge: structure, classes, responsive behavior, style guide… and of course, domain setup.

To be truly usable within a real design & dev workflow assisted by AI, it still lacks some key features in our opinion, such as:

• The ability to re-challenge a generated section via prompt
• Integration from a Figma link — like Lovable
  

From a business standpoint, however, it’s a smart move from Webflow. This kind of feature can:

• Attract new users to the platform, who will then likely need help (freelancers, agencies…) when pushing projects further in a V2
• Strengthen the company’s pitch in case of fundraising or a potential IPO
  

But caution: there’s a real brand risk here. If sites generated without added value start piling up, Webflow could drift toward being perceived as a “cheap template” platform.

4.2 Opinion on Webflow’s Global AI Position

Now, if we were on Webflow’s product team, and had to make a call:

Webflow is positioned in a niche of highly personalized websites, often tied to precise business needs. Rather than betting everything on full site generation, we would prioritize developing a real AI assistant — one that handles repetitive tasks, directly integrated into the IDE.

For example, features like:

• Replacing all identical values in CSS properties with variables
• Reorganizing and renaming classes consistently
• Automatically cleaning global CSS (removing unused classes, unifying frameworks)
  

And why not go further with:

• Smart pre-creation of CMS collections based on a selected layout
• Generating animations via prompt (GSAP, Webflow interactions, or others)
• Being able to develop advanced features like API integrations or interactive maps, using prompt-based development only.

In short, we envision an AI "co-pilot" improving the daily workflow of Webflow developers rather than a trendy, occasional generation tool.

But maybe our position is more conservative, and less ambitious than the current “growth push” logic: staying in the AI race, capturing new users, and clearly… laying the groundwork for an IPO.

In that context, launching this kind of feature makes perfect sense.

Conclusion

The Webflow AI Site Builder sends a clear message: Webflow is in the AI race. On the technical side, the tool is still young, with concrete limitations for real professional use. But from a strategic standpoint, it opens doors: user acquisition, growth, IPO.

In our opinion, Webflow shouldn’t lose sight of what makes it strong — its ability to build tailor-made websites, designed for specific business needs. And where AI will have the most long-term impact will probably be by assisting teams daily, not by replacing thoughtful architectural work.

To be continued.