Lately, I’ve been noticing a curious trend. I visit one website, and then another, and… it’s almost the same. Layouts feel eerily familiar, interactions feel almost identical, and the overall "feel" is uncanny. What’s even more striking is that many of these sites have emerged in just the last year or two.
It makes me wonder. Is AI actually stifling creativity? Or is it just accelerating convergence in design?
Many of these websites appear to be built end-to-end with AI-assisted tools. From layout to copy to interaction patterns, it feels like someone hit a "VibeCode" button and got the whole package. The upside is obvious. Faster development, consistent quality, and lower cost. The downside? They all start to look and feel the same.
I could be wrong, but it seems like the proliferation of these AI-driven templates might be leading to a kind of homogenisation. The uniqueness that used to come from a designer’s experimentation or a developer’s creative twist is now being replaced by AI "best practices."
That’s not to say AI is inherently bad for innovation. It can supercharge ideas, help smaller teams punch above their weight, and unlock possibilities that were previously too time-consuming. But if everyone leans too heavily on AI-generated defaults, we might end up in a world where every new site looks like a slightly different clone of the last one.
So maybe the real challenge isn’t AI itself. It’s how we use it. If we rely on it blindly, innovation can stagnate. But if we treat it as a creative partner, a tool rather than a template factory, there’s still room for fresh ideas, bold experiments, and genuine originality.
The question I keep coming back to is this. In a world where AI can do "most of it" automatically, how do we ensure we’re still pushing boundaries instead of just reproducing what already exists?
Top comments (11)
I get what you are saying. It is easy for most of us to stay focused on shipping and improving our craft while bigger shifts happen around us.
The funding, the incentives, the algorithms, all of that shapes the space more than we like to admit. And yeah, it can feel pretty grim at times.
I do think you are right about one thing though. We cannot just be passive. Even small pushback, small conversations, and small choices in what we build and support add up. That is part of why I wanted to write about this in the first place.
You make a really good point.
The uniform design issue feels small compared to what you are describing. The speed and scale at which content can now be created and amplified is more concerning. When algorithms reward outrage or extreme takes, AI makes it easier to produce more of that kind of content faster.
Maybe the bigger risk is not that AI makes everything look the same. It is that it makes everything louder.
I completely agree with you — it’s not AI that makes websites feel uniform, it’s how we choose to use it. AI can be an incredible driver of progress and acceleration (for nonsense just as much as for insight), and the way you’re framing its use aligns closely with my own thinking on the subject. Used as a creative partner, AI is extraordinary; used as a mentor… that’s no longer really its role.
I really like how you explained this. AI as a creative partner feels powerful. AI as a mentor feels risky. If we let it guide all decisions, we may end up repeating what already exists. When we stay in control and use it to support our ideas, it becomes a strong tool. The difference is in how we choose to use it. That responsibility is still ours.
Exactly — that’s where the real balance lies.
When AI is used to explore, challenge, or expand ideas, it can push creativity further. But when it starts shaping decisions or replacing reflection, everything tends to converge toward the same patterns.
I think the real skill now is learning how to collaborate with it without delegating our judgment. Used that way, it’s an extraordinary amplifier. Used passively, it quickly becomes a homogenizer.
Designing a website now a days is much more complex than in the late 90's due to the amount of different devices. We have to think of sites as variables, capable of looking good in tiny and huge displays. AI is not the only one to blame, this is something that has been happening since CSS frameworks were introduced. All in pursue of solving the hassle of dynamic design.
Great post!
What my strategy is to draw my ideas barehand and how my tool is going to react when user clicks something. Because this way, I am able to make my idea fully formed. I have experienced that AI is just trying to make it look like other websites.
Thank you. I like your approach a lot.
Starting with pen and paper makes a big difference. It helps you think clearly about what you want to build before any tool influences the result.
Maybe the order really matters.
Depend on prompt. For example my app try solve one uncommon problem, and yes this case the fancy ui out of focus.
dev.to/pengeszikra/rustroke-wasm-m...
That is a good point. When you are solving a unique problem, the focus is not on trendy design. It is on solving the problem well. In those cases, fancy patterns do not matter as much.
I also think many websites look similar because they solve similar problems. When the problem is different, the result is usually different too.
It seems you're talking about an application… that's not really what I'd call a website. In this case, usability is paramount, and as Ujja says, it's about solving the problem. It's not a design issue. But if you were creating a landing page, you might want to pay attention to it.