{"id":640715,"date":"2024-10-06T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/cpo-paul-gubbay-says-squarespace-is-training-its-ai-tools-with-curation-and-taste\/"},"modified":"2024-10-06T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-06T13:00:00","slug":"cpo-paul-gubbay-says-squarespace-is-training-its-ai-tools-with-curation-and-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/cpo-paul-gubbay-says-squarespace-is-training-its-ai-tools-with-curation-and-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"#CPO Paul Gubbay says Squarespace is training its AI tools with curation and taste"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will generative AI tools help people build better websites, or will they just fill the web with spam? With the recent launch of Design Intelligence<\/a>, a new website builder full of generative AI tools, Squarespace is betting on the former.<\/p>\n

I spoke with chief product officer Paul Gubbay about Design Intelligence and Squarespace\u2019s broader AI strategy. Our conversation began with a glimpse at what other (unspecified) AI-powered website builders deliver when prompted to create a generic spa website: confusing, ugly websites.<\/p>\n

This was, of course, a setup for a demo of Design Intelligence, which began with a few prompts allowing Gubbay to specify things like the kind of website he wanted to build and the personality of the brand being featured. The resulting website featured AI-generated design, text, and images, but it looked \u2014 for lack of a better word \u2014 like a \u201creal\u201d site, with plenty of options for further customization.<\/p>\n

Gubbay argued that while other website builders have \u201cscrambled very quickly\u201d to launch AI features, those competitors are asking, \u201cHow can we take this technology<\/a> and use it to stand out to our customers?\u201d while Squarespace has been asking something a little different: \u201cHow do we take all these latest technologies and really use it to help our customers<\/em> stand out?\u201d<\/p>\n

Read a transcript<\/a> of our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I imagine an AI website generation product, I imagine it looking like a prompt \u2014 like everything at the beginning of the demo. But here, with every step, you could still go in and customize it. It looks, in some ways, like Squarespace today. So I\u2019m curious: How did you decide where you wanted the AI to step in and generate elements of the website versus where you wanted it to still be customizable by humans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve taken our time to really think about how these things come together. So we have this principle when it comes to building something like a website or anything visual: I know it when I see it. And I think that holds true for not just professionals, but for anybody.<\/p>\n

Trying to build a website through a chatbot is really challenging. It\u2019s like being in a car and typing in \u201cturn left\u201d or \u201cturn right.\u201d You want the system to be able to show you things, and when you see the thing you like, you want to go, \u201cOK, that\u2019s it.\u201d But then you don\u2019t want to be limited by that; you want to be able to continue playing. We want it to feel like a playground.<\/p>\n

And so for us, it really was taking this \u201cI know it when I see it\u201d concept. And every time the team came and said, \u201cHow about we add a chat? How about we do these things that everyone\u2019s doing?\u201d we were like, \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s really the way people want to do this.\u201d That just became the model for us, and once everyone adopted that, it became very natural for all of us just to think through that ideology.<\/p>\n

It was very important for us, also, that we treat the customers\u2019 information that they give us with a lot of respect. You\u2019re telling us something about who you are, you\u2019re entrusting us to take that and use it effectively for you. So we wanted to make sure that the concepts that we showed you in Blueprint would carry through into the system as well, so that you would feel like those choices you made up front weren\u2019t just for naught.<\/p>\n

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Image Credits:<\/strong>Squarespace<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You also talked about this idea of curation and technology. Often those things are set in opposition to each other, but it sounds like you\u2019ve actually tried to build curation into the technology. You even said that you have a curation engine. Can you talk a bit more about what that looks like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our CEO says this sometimes; I think it\u2019s true: The fact that we have text generation inside of our website tool, it\u2019s great. But you could also go to Open AI and ChatGPT, type in something, get the text, and copy and paste it [into Squarespace], and that\u2019s fine as well. The challenge a lot of people have is knowing how to prompt those engines the right way to actually get the right output from them.<\/p>\n

We have a very specific, proprietary point of view on how we prompt engines and how we curate the content that comes out of them, to get the look and feel and the views that we think are going to be really valuable to our customers based on our experience, based on what they\u2019re telling us, and based on our taste.<\/p>\n

AI imagery is a great example of that. We built our whole library of how we prompt [AI models] specifically to get the type of imagery that we want to get out, that we feel is very Squarespace, very right for our customers. We tag and curate those things, and then we feed that back into the system again.<\/p>\n

We do that when we look at color palettes; we do that when we think about layout switching. That\u2019s the curation element. It\u2019s our design and creative team spending lots of time thinking about: How do these elements come together? How do we prompt engines? How do we choose what comes out of this and discard the things that we don\u2019t want that come out of this? We keep getting better and better, so you don\u2019t have to do it. The whole point of coming to us is that you don\u2019t have to do it.<\/p>\n

It sounds like part of your approach is, you\u2019re not necessarily trying to build all these models yourself. You\u2019re focusing on how you present it and make it accessible and bring it together.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Look, we\u2019re not the LLM experts in creating all these different types of content. We leverage them. We leverage Google, we\u2019re leveraging OpenAI, Anthropic. We have great partnerships. But for us, the secret sauce is how we\u2019re prompting and curating that content as it\u2019s coming out, and making sure it fits what we know about you.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Squarespace has made it easy to create and customize websites already. How do you think bringing more generative AI into the process will change that ecosystem? Are Squarespace websites going to look different than they do today?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to think that they\u2019re going to look even better. It\u2019s very, very important for us, and it\u2019s always been incredibly important for us, that design is always at the forefront. People come to Squarespace because they believe that design is going to make a difference. And a big part of that difference is not just capturing their brand and who they are, but it\u2019s about making sure that the thing that gets pre-created, at the end of the day, feels bespoke.<\/p>\n

When you ask a question like that, it could imply they all look the same in some way. And that\u2019s absolutely not what we would want, right? So I think we are going to give people the tools to get even better results faster, but we will always make sure that it\u2019s going to adhere to the vision of what they want.<\/p>\n

Squarespace works very closely with designers; you just wrapped up a whole event with design partners. How do you think designers, especially Squarespace partners, should be looking at a tool like AI? To what extent should they see it as a threat versus an opportunity?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important to look at it as an opportunity. AI technology is clearly a huge part of our future, and just like any new technology, learning how to leverage it and use it the right way is going to enhance what you\u2019re able to do. I 1 million percent do not believe it replaces design. It\u2019s meant to enhance it. We will continue to play our role to ensure that it enhances it for our customers and our creators.<\/p>\n

We just had Circle Day<\/a> with many [design] professionals. And when I think about something like design intelligence, for me, it just helps them bring a vision to life faster to share with a customer. But of course, [customers are coming to us] to implement all of the things that they want on top of that. If we can inspire them with some choices that they will then change and go deeper on, fantastic. We\u2019re just going to make the job faster for them and maybe easier for them, but we would never replace them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will generative AI tools help people build better websites, or will they just fill the web with spam? With the recent launch of Design Intelligence, a new website builder full of generative AI tools, Squarespace is betting on the former. I spoke with chief product officer Paul Gubbay about Design Intelligence and Squarespace\u2019s broader AI…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":640716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/F064_Q324_Refresh_Product_BlueprintPersonalityStep_Press_1920x1080-Logo.jpg?resize=1200,675","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[77337,147146,106538],"class_list":["post-640715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-generative-ai","tag-squarespace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}