Inception: a creative, code-first, AI-native design tool

Creative AI? Really?

Most ideas build on prior experience, their impact depends on context: how novel and useful they are to users. We can distinguish between personal utility - where a single user’s need is met - and market value, which requires broader adoption signals (e.g., conversion rates or willingness to pay) to demonstrate scalability. Componential creativity theory tells us that domain knowledge, intrinsic motivation, and supportive conditions drive creative output. With human guidance, AI can now meaningfully participate in this process by recombining data into fresh, context-aware designs.

What is Inception?

Introducing Inception - a product we’ve been developing for the past six months.

Inception generates web designs from simple user prompts that require no design expertise or prompt-engineering skills. The output is creative, professional-looking websites delivered as HTML and Tailwind CSS. This code-first approach ensures every design is production-ready and avoids the translation gaps common in traditional design-to-code workflows. Our goal is to generate fully implementable designs optimized for accessibility, search engines, conversion, and user perception.

Inception is launching soon, see more examples generated by Inception here.

How AI is changing web design

Currently, two main flavors of AI design tools are on the market:

• Template-based (e.g., Framer): AI adjusts elements like text or colors on top of manually crafted templates.
• App-focused (e.g. Lovable, Bolt): AI-first foundations optimized for app interfaces. These can spin up a basic website shell, but you still need design expertise and coding skills to refine it into a production-ready site.

Inception is a new breed of AI-native tools that uses no templates at all, instead focusing on each website’s needs - from design to accessibility.

With Inception in the hands of designers, indie hackers, developers, and everyone in between, we can level up average design quality. Let’s be honest: most low- to mid-budget websites feel uninspired and frustrating to use. They rarely reflect a brand’s personality or meet user expectations, creating unnecessary frustration for visitors.

Imagine if your local barber or restaurant had a well-designed, clear website with service details, pricing, and reservation booking in just a few clicks. It’s surprising that in 2025, this isn’t the norm.

Who would use this, and what would their workflow be?

Target Users: Developers, marketers, indie hackers, and designers - anyone who needs production-ready web designs quickly, regardless of design skills.

AI-First Workflow:

1. Prompt: Provide a simple brief or an existing asset (upload inspirational design or screenshot).
2. Generate: Inception creates multiple HTML/Tailwind prototypes.
3. Review: Share iterations with stakeholders for fast feedback.
4. Refine: Iterate in Inception or export to either a build tool or code for final touches.

This unified approach removes brainstorming bottlenecks, accelerates decision cycles, and ensures designs are instantly implementable.

AI doesn’t understand human perception

AI approximates human preferences based on millions of existing websites, but it can’t catch every subtle issue. That’s why experienced designers with good taste remain essential. In our experiments, even users without design experience made solid choices when presented with 10–20 AI-generated versions. Automated A/B testing can further let your target audience decide the best design.

AI doesn’t have taste

AI lacks innate taste, and surprisingly, many designers struggle with taste too. Taste is subjective and depends on culture and context. No designer’s taste is universally perfect, and finding the right designer for a project can be challenging. If you can evaluate a designer’s portfolio, you can also choose from AI-generated proposals. If you lack confidence in your taste, hire a designer whose aesthetic you trust and refine AI outputs together.

Is the craft of manual web design going to die?

Manual web design will remain essential for high-stakes, bespoke projects, while AI handles routine tasks. High-end, supervised design will always have a place, especially where significant investments are involved. However, AI will allow beginners to progress faster by focusing on interactions with a client and taste development.

The role of next-gen web designers

Next-gen designers will spend less time moving pixels and more time understanding context, honing their taste, and overseeing the design-to-production process. They’ll leverage AI-first platforms to go from idea to launch efficiently while maintaining strategic oversight.

Is the future of web design bright?

AI and no-code will democratize professional web design, speeding up iterations, reducing costs, and raising quality across the board. Designers will shift from manual pixel-pushing to strategic, user-focused work.

Get notified when Beta version of Inception launches and see if it can deliver: https://webstudio.is/inception