Why everyone is getting the wrong end of stick with The Grid and it’s impact on websites

Or.  How I learned to stop worrying and love the Grid.

This is going to be heresy to many reader and folks out there, but I became a founding member of The Grid.

The Grid is an AI that builds websites for you, depending entirely on the content that you upload.

I’m going to take a minute to explain why most people are getting the wrong end of the stick, why it’s not as controversial as we think and why you need to stop worrying.

Or.  How I learned to stop worrying and love the Grid.

This is going to be heresy to many reader and folks out there, but I became a founding member of The Grid.

The Grid is an AI that builds websites for you, depending entirely on the content that you upload.

I’m going to take a minute to explain why most people are getting the worng end of the stick, why it’s not as contraversial as we think and why you need to stop worrying.

I’m not going to sell it for them, but if you go to THEGRID.IO you can see their promotional video.

What everyone is currently worrying about?

IS THE GRID A BETTER WEB DESIGNER THAN YOU?  Written by Benjie Moss is a spot on piece about web design, The Grid, and the over arching argument “is anything but a web designer, better than a web designer?”

I thoroughly suggest giving it a read as the article goes over all the points that most people raise.  Is AI/The Grid better at design than me?  Is it better than coding?

“Ultimately will I loose my job/business because of a web design AI robot”

Benjie won’t need to jump in here.  No.  No you will not loose your business of WordPress/website design/development any more than you are currently loosing business to guys that sell websites for £500.

So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that everyone is panicking that ‘the grid’ is going to take all their business away.  A robot that designs websites surely eliminates the need for a designer?

If you check out the article above, Benjie lays out why that’s not quite true.  We’ll always need designers because at the moment, a robot can’t understand that content.  It just sees the content as best it can and deal with it.  There wouldn’t be innovation or creativity, just best practice.

Why shouldn’t I worry?

You shouldn’t worry because items like The Grid are going to become more and more frequent.  But it isn’t going to change the way your customers develop needs for their business.

Anyone who does anything with websites, from deigning, developing, writing, creating etc.  They are contributing to a HUGE and GROWING part of someone else’s business.

People don’t buy code or design with you, they are either buying more leads, or more sales from you.

A website needs to do a whole lot.  But it really boils down to three key features.

1. Does the website help me find more leads and get me seen by a larger audience?
2. Does the website help convert that audience into profit or help convert those leads into sales?
3. Does the website help support my customers and let them become repeat buyers?

Any website needs to be able to do AT LEAST on of these things.  Notice how design and code isn’t on there?

Sure, design is likely to help position you as a trusted source of content.  And sure, design will help your conversion rates.  Also, proper coding helps with everything from SEO, to faster loading to browser compatibility.  But all of those things contribute to the 3 points above.

You will still know a TON more than any customer. You’re expected to know what a landing page is, what blog content looks like, how to promote a portfolio.  An AI can’t do that yet.

Even if, hypothetically, everything was totally automated, even the content creation (we’re not even CLOSE to that yet), there would still be a call for experts to help with how it all fits together.

What people hire you for, is to get clarity on their own business.  They hire you to help them build and visualise the idea for their business, online.  They can’t do it.  The closest that The Grid comes too an AI, is a printer.  You still need to load all the tools and data in, you need to have a goal and have a vision.

Isn’t this just more competition?

Technically, everything is competition.  Money in a business ins’t spent ‘per industry’.  It’s spent on desire, want, needs, updates.  Those might not even include a website.  It could be a new TV, staff outing, new supplies.

You’re always going to have to prove that you’re worth the investment.

When it boils down to what people are hiring you for, they want results.  One of the most important questions you can ask your customers is-

“Do you want that result faster and with less input from you, i.e. more automation?”

One of the big arguments against things like The Grid is that customers want more and more customisation options.

“In fact, the #1 complaint I hear from readers of my website builders guide is that website builders don’t let users customize enough.” – Site Builder Report

Our customers always want to tweak, edit and customise things.  The truth is that they want to do this to feel like they’re creating something, like their input is valid.  It’s also done so they can hide their fear of launching.  Sometimes people are fearful of launching for one reason or another, so they delay it with minor changes.

Frankly, even if we were designing a website from scratch, customers still want to change and customise things right up to the last minute.

This has to be addressed at any point, with any design tool.  Even on WordPress we have to say to customers-

1. Does that change help your goal of XYZ
2. We can happily change that, but the budget doesn’t allow it, we’ll need to invoice you
3. Why do you want to change that?  What effect will that have?

Often the changes aren’t relevant to the goal.

So, if we had a tool that achieved the goal of ‘generate 100 new email leads for my business’.  And The Grid was the right choice, I would use it.

Customers don’t want a car built from scratch, they want to get to their destination with comfort.

At least check it out, The Grid might save you a ton of hassle.

https://thegrid.io/#3720

Final thoughts

We can all start to scream ‘Skynet’ and ‘The Matrix’.  But the fact remains that The Grid is not true AI.  Someone else had to tell it what to do.  It is at best a series of tools that a human would use, and a sliding scale determining how relevant a best practice would be.

I’m extremely excited to try The Grid.  I’d love to be able to say to my website, “I need a landing page, this is the title, this is the information I need and here is the light bulb moment“.  The Grid then whips one up depending on what I’ve put in.

If you want to check out what The Grid has to offer then click here.

It might save you a ton of time and effort for producing some great results for your customers.  It isn’t cheating, it isn’t deceiving anyone, there is still LOTS that needs to be done for a website.

• content messaging
• social integration
• response funnel
• sales pipeline
• contact information
• branding and logo
• blog post discovery
• and more

Do you agree?  Anything I’ve missed out? Am I barking up the wrong tree?  Get involved in the comments below