The short answer
Every website I make is designed by me, from a blank page, for one business. I do use AI to help write the code underneath, because it makes the build quicker and that keeps the price down. Nothing goes live that I haven't read, understood and tested myself.
What is designed by hand?
Everything you and your customers see. The layout, the colours, the lettering, the order things appear in, and what gets left out. I start by getting to know your business and the people who walk through your door, and the design comes from that. No AI tool draws it or fills in the gaps.
This matters to me for a personal reason too. Like many designers, I have had my own work used to train AI tools without being asked. I know how that feels, so I don't use AI to generate designs, and your site won't be made that way.
So where does AI come in?
In the code, which is the part underneath that makes a design work on a phone or a computer. A lot of code is routine: the same well-known solutions, typed out again for every project. AI tools handle that part quickly.
This is now normal in the industry. In the large technology companies I have worked with in recent years, developers are asked in interviews to show how well they work with AI, because doing it well is a skill of its own. You have to know what to ask for, and you have to be able to tell when the answer is wrong.
Does that mean a machine built my site?
No. I read and write code myself, and I direct every step. AI makes mistakes, as people do, so I check what it produces and test it on phones and computers before you see it. If something needs a second pair of eyes, a developer I work with reviews it. No code goes into your site that I don't understand.
What does this change for you?
Mostly the price and the wait. The design takes as long as it always did, because that is the part that needs a person. The build takes much less time than it did a few years ago. That is a large part of why a site designed for one business is now within reach of a small one.