Microsoft Introduces AI-Powered Web Design Assistant

AI-powered web design assistant

Microsoft has unveiled an AI tool aimed at alleviating the challenges associated with website development. The incorporation of AI serves as Microsoft’s solution to this problem.

Learn more about Microsoft Build 2023. Today signifies the launch of Copilot in Power Pages, available in preview for customers in the United States. This AI-Powered Web Design Assistant is specifically designed for Microsoft’s low-code business website creation tool, Power Pages. By providing prompts, Copilot has the ability to generate text, forms, chatbots, and web page layouts, as well as create and modify image and site design themes.

For instance, to create a form, users can simply describe the type of form they require, and Copilot will construct it and automatically generate the necessary backend database tables. These tables can then be edited, added to, or removed using natural language within Copilot.

Sangya Singh, the Vice President of Power Pages at Microsoft, explained in an email interview with TechCrunch, As the creator, you articulate your needs in natural language and utilize Copilot’s suggestions to design web pages, create content, and develop intricate business data forms for your website. Gone are the days of starting from scratch.

The use of AI in website generation is not a groundbreaking concept in today’s world. Tools like Jasper are capable of handling copy, images, layouts, and more, while generators like Mixo can create basic splash pages based on a brief description.

Meanwhile, Singh portrays Copilot in Power Pages as more versatile than its competitors, while emphasizing that it is not a tool intended for generating spam sites in their entirety.

Power Pages

With Power Pages, you can seamlessly progress from no code (describing the site via natural language) to low code (editing the website design and layouts using the design studio) to pro code (building advanced customization with familiar web frameworks), she stated. Enabling an AI assistant to construct business data-centric sites using natural language is revolutionary within the realm of Power Pages.

Naturally, the inclusion of generative AI carries inherent risks depending on the domain and use case. Even if it is not the primary intention, AI has the potential to generate toxic content and deviate from its intended purpose if not closely monitored.

Singh asserts that Copilot in Power Pages, which is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 model, incorporates guardrails to protect against such issues.

We collect the website maker’s user prompts, utilize the large language model to obtain suggestions, and extensively process the output, including offensive content filtering, before presenting the suggestions to the maker, Singh explained. If Copilot’s suggestions are irrelevant or inappropriate, makers can easily report the AI-generated output through a thumbs-down gesture and provide additional feedback.

Regarding the aforementioned chatbot, also powered by GPT-3.5, that Power Pages users can now integrate into their websites, Singh affirms that it is developed with similar safeguards, including a whitelist of URLs that it references to retrieve answers.

It is important to note that Power Pages Copilot is not an ‘automatic’ AI pilot generating websites, but an ‘AI assistant’ to a human website maker – hence the name Copilot. The maker can seek suggestions on how to construct various components of a business data-centric site, she added. We prioritize granting the makers ‘total control’ where they have the authority to apply the Copilot’s suggestion, modify it further, or discard it, according to their preference.