How to make your website look less AI-generated (and more trustworthy)
Built your site with an AI tool and it looks like everyone else's? The tell-tale signs of an AI-generated website, and eight fixes that make it look like your business.
To make your website look less AI-generated, replace the defaults that every AI builder ships with: purple-to-blue gradients, glowing shapes, generic icons and phrases like "unlock your potential". Then add the things only your business has: real photos, real reviews, your own words and pages built around what your customers came to do.
AI tools like Lovable, Bolt, Codex and Claude can get a website live in an afternoon, and that's genuinely useful. The catch is that they lean on the same defaults, so a lot of new sites now look alike, and customers are starting to notice. I've spent 8+ years designing websites and apps, and more and more of the sites I review were built with AI. Here's what gives them away and how to fix it.
Why it matters
Looking AI-generated isn't a style problem. It's a trust problem. When a site looks like a template, visitors assume the business behind it is new, small or not paying attention, even when none of that is true. On small-business forums, owners now ask for websites that are "not vibe coded", because their own customers can tell. (I've written more about why AI-built websites lose customers.)
The good news: most of the fixes are content and a handful of design decisions, not a rebuild.
The signs your website looks AI-generated
Open your homepage and count how many of these you can see:
- A purple, blue or pink gradient behind the headline, often with glowing blobs or glass-effect cards.
- A headline that could belong to any business: "Elevate your business", "Unlock your potential", "Seamless solutions for modern teams".
- Three feature boxes, each with a generic icon (a rocket, a lightning bolt, a shield) and two lines of vague copy.
- Stock or AI-generated photos: spotless offices, people pointing at laptops, hands that don't look quite right.
- Testimonials with no surnames, photos or company names, or reviews that all sound the same.
- Everything centred, every card the same rounded box, and the same section order as every other AI site: hero, features, testimonials, pricing, FAQ.
- Buttons that look clickable but go nowhere, and a layout that falls apart on a phone.
If you counted three or more, your visitors have probably noticed too.
8 fixes, in order
1. Rewrite the headline in your own words
Say what you do, who it's for and where. "Family law in Parramatta, with fixed-fee first appointments" tells people more in one line than any slogan. Do the same for every heading on the page: if it could sit on a competitor's site without changing a word, rewrite it.
2. Replace the gradient with your own colours
Pick one main brand colour and a couple of neutrals, and use them consistently. If your brand colour is purple, that's fine. The problem is the default glowing gradient, not the colour.
3. Choose type with some character
AI builders default to the same few fonts. Pick one typeface for headings and one for text (or one for both) that suits your business, and stick to a small, consistent set of sizes.
4. Use real photos
Photos of your team, your work, your premises or your customers do more for trust than any illustration. Phone photos in good light beat stock photos. Swap every AI image you can.
5. Put real proof near the top
Reviews with full names, your Google rating, client logos, before and after shots, a result with a number in it. Real proof is the quickest way to stop looking like a template, because a template can't fake it.
6. Cut the generic icon grids
Three icon boxes rarely tell anyone anything. Replace them with something specific: a photo of the work, a short list of what's included, or the questions customers ask before they buy.
7. Make one action obvious, and check every button works
Pick the one thing you want visitors to do on each page and make it the most visible button. Then click every button and link yourself. Quick builds often ship with dead ends, and a button that does nothing undoes all the trust the rest of the page built.
8. Check it on your phone
Most of your visitors are probably on a phone. Open every page on yours, and fix anything you have to pinch, zoom or squint to use.
When to get help
You can do most of this yourself over a weekend. Where people get stuck is knowing which changes matter most for their own customers, and making the result look consistent rather than patched.
If that's you, start with the free website check: 8 plain-English questions that take about a minute and list your top fixes. If you want a designer's eyes on it, an audit sprint from $750 (AUD, ex GST) finds what makes your site look generic and what's costing you customers, and then I give you a fixed quote to clean it up. That's part of my app and website design work: I redesign sites built with AI tools and can rebuild them too, so you end up with a site you own and can update yourself.
The short answer
An AI-generated look comes from defaults: gradients, generic icons, stock photos and stock phrases. Replace them with your own colours, your own words, real photos and real proof, make one action obvious, and check it all works on a phone. Your site will look like your business, not like everyone else's.
