Over the last decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been slowly seeping into all domains and sectors including website development. The current trend is not just adding AI elements into website design and framework, but using Artificial Intelligence to create websites.
In this blog, we shall look into detail about AI, how it is related to website development, and various AI-based solutions that can help in building a website.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
From the name, we can easily infer that it is about a form of intelligence that is manmade or artificially created. This field of study involves creating machines and programs that think and function like humans.
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Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of AI and revolves around training machines to respond and function without human intervention. Over the last decade, the field of Artificial Intelligence has rapidly evolved, creating newer areas of study such as Deep Learning, Robotics, and lots more.
A global study by Accenture has found that the market for AI will be nearly $60 billion by 2025. In the year 2016, the global AI market was just around $1.4 million.
Another study has reported that the investment in startups based on Artificial Intelligence has gone up by 6 times since 2000. All these data point to the fact that AI will have a huge influence on every domain.
Artificial Intelligence in Website Development
The multifaceted development of Artificial Intelligence has enabled designers and developers to create websites using AI. This specialized field called Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) is an offshoot of Machine Learning.
In simple terms, it can be described as a Machine Learning technique that identifies the latest trends in website design and development and implements them on the website.
The complex ML algorithm is designed to “understand” the core design concepts and principles. The algorithm then “observe” the trends in other websites, puts together both the knowledge and the observation to create a website. In fact, fully functional websites can be built even without creating a template.
A few platforms that are experimenting with AI for website development are Wix, WordPress, The Grid, Adobe Sensei, GoDaddy, Bookmark, and Firedrop.
Facebook, Google, Amazon, IBM Watson, and more have built AI toolkits with Machine Learning and natural language understanding features. These toolkits are ready to use and just need to be plugged into web applications. We shall explore more about AI toolkits later in this blog.
Platforms like Webflow and Bookmark provide AI-assistance for website applications and graphic designers. The virtual design assistant helps designers by providing advice or recommendations on the design.
The platform also takes care of the repetitive tasks involved in the designing process, so that designers can focus on the creative side of the job.
Websites integrated with AI-based analytics solutions can personalize the content and the customer experience based on the demographics, audience type, user engagement, and other data.
In the next few years, we will see rapid development in Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS), which will include delivering AI and ML-based solutions for website development.
On the Positive Side – Advantages of Building Websites Using AI
There are numerous advantages to using Artificial Intelligence to build a website. A few of them are:
- Deliver a personalized experience for the user
- Enhance visitor experience
- Plan more effective digital marketing campaign
- Improve the website’s performance on search engines
- Optimize website for voice and visual search
- Reduce cost for building a website
- Save on resources required to build a website
- Get analytics on website performance, user experience, user activity, and more
What are AI toolkits?
AI toolkits can be described as ready-to-use AI solutions for website development. These tools and APIs are created in programming languages such as HTML, CSS, Java, Node.JS, C++, Ruby, and Python.
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Website developers don’t need to have any knowledge of AI to integrate these AI components into the website framework.
However, they need to have a basic understanding of the AI lingo such as actions, intents, entities, and so on to maximize the function of the AI toolkits. These kits are designed to provide an overall function and are not for any specific function or task required for a particular website.
So, developers need to work on additional customization based on the website design and application. This customization can be a tad difficult as the developer needs to know the concept hierarchy and domain-specific knowledge.
To overcome this challenge, many of the companies offering AI toolkits also provide pre-designed models based on the target industry, domain, or sector.
For example, Microsoft LUIS offers pre-built domain models for websites dealing with movie ticket reservation, cab booking, restaurant booking, and such. Similarly, Dialogflow has models for hotels, restaurants, airlines, and coffee shop websites.
What are the Different Ways in which AI Can Be Used in Website Building?
To Build Chatbots
One of the first applications of AI in website creation was the development of chatbots. These bots are programmed to answer the common queries asked by customers when they visit a website. Chatbots are designed using natural language understanding and pattern recognition.
These AI tools learn from language patterns, feedback, and context. After answering the basic questions, the chatbots then direct the conversation to a customer care agent.
These bots reduce the need for a customer care person to deal with repetitive and commonly asked questions. On the other side, chatbots help improve customer interaction and reduce response time.
To Integrate Voice-based Interactions
Voice search is already going big and it is fast becoming important for websites to be optimized for voice search. Voice-based interaction tools can help websites deliver a better user experience.
To Create a Self-learning algorithm
Intelligent coding assistants can help programmers code an application quickly and easily. This assistant analyzes the code and suggests code snippets to complete the program. It also helps highlight syntaxes and update the database, saving time and effort for the developer.
Self-modifying codes can be created from scratch and deployed in relevant scenarios. The self-learning algorithm is capable to learn based on experience. It also offers personalized notifications and recommendations.
Read Also: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Will Revolutionize Web Development – Know-How?
An example for an intelligent coding assistant is Codota for Chrome. It suggests code completions and helps build predictive code models. It also recommends content based on the context.
This web-based IDE is used in StackOverflow and GitHub. Node Package Manager (NPM) and Github are a couple of pre-built, tested resources that can be used to create self-learning algorithms.
For Image Recognition
This AI tool recognizes partial and exact objects, locations, and images. It also helps identify duplicates. Google Lens and Google image search are based on this technology. Microsoft’s Captionbot.ai recognizes an image and suggests a relevant caption.
Suggest Personalized Recommendations and Notifications
AI-powered apps and tools can be used to offer personalized notifications and recommendations to website users. Content-based, user behavior-based, and user activity-based recommendations are suggested based on the user’s search on the website.
Amazon uses a collaborative product filtering classification feature that provides suggestions such as similar product, items often purchased together, or based on buddy recommendations. Netflix, on the other hand, uses visual impressions to offer recommendations.
To Assist Designers
AI virtual assistants gather all the relevant data and help the designer create layouts, mockups, and templates of a website.
They take over the repetitive tasks and also give recommendations based on trends, audience, demographics, and other pre-defined attributes. One of the popular AI assistants for designers is Adobe Sensei.
To Optimize the Website for Search Engines
Search engine optimization is one of the crucial steps in ensuring the performance of a website. Predictive engines designed based on AI principles identify errors in the website framework, which could reduce its performance on search engines.
These virtual assistants also help identify wrong content on the website and offer suggestions to optimize it. Market Brew is an AI-based platform that helps identify the best solutions to enhance a website’s performance on search engines.
To Automate Data Collection
AI-based analytics tools collect and collate all kinds of data such as demographics, user profile, page navigation, user activity, search history, and lots more.
All this data can be analyzed to identify user behavior and expectations. Website owners can use this information to improve their products/services and also deliver a better customer experience.
For Testing the Website
Repetitive and time-consuming testing tasks can be automated using AI solutions. For one, automated testing has a higher level of accuracy. Secondly, it also reduces manual hours required for testing.
On the Other Side – Cons of Using AI to Create a Website
A few of the cons of Artificial Intelligence are:
- Job profiles such as graphic design, mobile application design, and web design could be replaced by smart machines, leading to a job crunch
- AI-based tools and solutions automatically gather data on customer behavior, online searches, page navigation, and such, which could lead to privacy issues
- Though chatbots and other AI tools help improve customer interaction, they are impersonal, which can create a gap between the user and the website
Conclusion
However, there’s no way but forward. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are changing the website development landscape in many ways. Website owners need to take advantage of this emerging trend and implement it on their websites.
The pros will definitely be an added advantage for the business owners and the cons should be addressed as soon as possible. At Probytes, we take pride in the fact that we constantly update ourselves about the latest trends and developments in website designing and development.
Our aim is to create high-performing and attractive websites for our clients. To find out more about the website development services we offer, contact us today.