01The three approaches
Almost every AI website builder works in one of three ways, and knowing which tells you what to expect from it.
| Approach | How it works | Examples | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Template filling | Picks a layout from a library and fills it with generated copy and images | Wix, Squarespace, Durable | Fast and safe, but sites resemble the templates |
| Code generation | A language model writes the HTML, CSS and JavaScript or React directly | Lovable, Bolt, v0 | Flexible, but design depends on the prompt |
| Design-first generation | Decides layout, type and hierarchy explicitly, then generates code from those decisions | Orlume | More considered design, takes longer per page |
02What happens when you press enter
For a code-generating builder, a typical request goes through several steps. Builders differ in detail, but the shape is similar.
- 1Your prompt is expandedThe builder wraps it in a long system prompt describing the tech stack, coding rules and style conventions.
- 2Relevant context is addedExisting project files, design rules and example code are retrieved and included so the model follows them.
- 3The model generates codeA large language model writes or edits files, predicting the most likely code for the request.
- 4Errors are fixed automaticallyThe builder runs the code, catches build errors and asks the model to fix them, often several times.
- 5The site is previewed and deployedThe result runs in a preview and can be published to hosting the builder provides.
03Why AI websites often look the same
Large language models are trained to predict likely text, and code is text. Ask for "a landing page for a SaaS product" and the most likely answer is the layout seen most often in training data: a centered hero, a gradient, three feature cards, a pricing table. Google's introduction to large language models describes this prediction-based mechanism.
Template builders have the same problem for a different reason: everyone draws from the same template library. Why AI websites all look the same goes deeper on the mechanism, and what is AI slop in web design? names the patterns.
04What separates good AI builders from average ones
- Design decisions made explicitly, not left to whatever the model predicts.
- Real, editable output: code you can download, or a canvas you can edit.
- Automatic error fixing that does not charge you for the AI's own mistakes indefinitely.
- Sensible defaults for speed, accessibility and SEO, so you are not fixing basics afterwards.
- Clear pricing, since credit and token models make costs hard to predict.
05How to get better results from any AI builder
The prompt is the only design brief the AI gets. Describe the audience, the feeling and the one action you want, give references, and supply your real content. Name what you do not want ("no gradients, no icon cards") as well as what you do. How to write a prompt for an AI website builder has worked examples, and how to make a beautiful website covers the design principles that make the difference.
Then edit. Every AI builder produces a first draft, and the sites that look designed are the ones someone kept working on. If you are choosing a tool, how to choose an AI website builder and the AI website builder checklist cover what to compare.
What people who tried it say
Hacker News discussions of AI builders' internals tend to be skeptical of novelty and interested in technique: curated examples, retrieval and error-fixing loops are seen as sensible engineering around the model, and some argue UI generation would work better through structured component systems than raw code.
- How we made v0 an effective coding agentHacker News
Commenters discuss v0's use of curated code examples and string substitution; one suggests UI generation would be cleaner with a structured description of components and a separate theme rather than raw code.
Looking for more first-hand opinions? Search Reddit for “how do ai website builders work”. We link the live threads rather than summarizing them, so you read them in full.
Our take
the model matters less than what the builder does around it. The tools that produce sites people mistake for a designer's work are the ones that treat design as a decision to make, not a side effect of predicting code.
Where this falls short
Builders rarely publish how they work in detail, so descriptions here are general patterns plus what vendors have disclosed. Approaches are converging, and many tools now mix templates, generation and agents.
Orlume is a design-first builder: a design pass decides layout, typography, hierarchy and spacing before separate agents write and check the code, so design is never a side effect of code generation. Every site is a real Next.js project.
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Sources
- 1.How we made v0 an effective coding agent · Vercel
- 2.Introduction to Large Language Models · Google for Developers
Researched and written by the Orlume team · Updated October 2026
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