How to make your AI-built site not look AI-built
A practical fix list for the generic AI look. Change the defaults the model reaches for, break the template rhythm, and add the taste no prompt gives you for free.
To make an AI-built site not look AI-built, change the defaults the model reaches for and add the decisions it skips. In practice: swap the Inter typeface for a face with character, drop the violet-to-indigo gradient for a real palette, replace glass cards with solid, considered surfaces, break the centred three-card rhythm, and use one consistent icon set instead of emoji. None of it is hard. The AI look comes from untouched defaults, so the fix is to touch them on purpose. Do a handful of these and the same page stops reading as generated and starts reading as designed.
The generic AI look is not a rendering problem or a framework problem. It is a decisions problem. AI builders ship an excellent, neutral starting point, and most people never move off it, so the page inherits a look nobody actually chose. I covered the why in why AI-generated websites all look the same. This is the fix.
The fix list
You do not need all of these. Three or four, done with intent, are usually enough to pull a page off the AI baseline.
1. Change the typeface
The Inter font is on nearly every AI build, so it now reads as a default rather than a choice. Pick a typeface that suits your brand instead: a distinctive grotesque or humanist sans for a modern feel, or a serif on the headings for warmth and authority. It is the single highest-leverage change, because type sets the tone of the whole page. This site runs on Outfit for exactly that reason.
2. Replace the purple gradient with a real palette
The violet-to-indigo gradient is the most recognised AI tell there is. You do not have to fear colour, you have to choose it. Pick one brand colour and a couple of neutrals, and use the colour with restraint: an accent, not a wash across the hero and every button. A single deliberate colour looks far more considered than a stock from-indigo-500 gradient.
3. Kill the glass, commit to real surfaces
Semi-transparent glass cards with backdrop-blur are a signature of the default look. Swap them for solid surfaces with a clear border and honest spacing. A card that commits to being a card, on a background that commits to being a background, reads as designed. Frosted glass floating on a gradient reads as a template.
4. Break the template rhythm
Centred hero, one button, three cards, repeat. That rhythm is the skeleton under most AI pages. Break it on purpose: try a left-aligned hero, an asymmetric two-column band, a section that runs full width, or a count of items that is not three. Rhythm is what the eye reads before it reads any content, and varied rhythm is what separates a designed page from a generated one.
5. Use one real icon set
Emoji and mismatched line icons are a fast tell. Choose one icon system and use it everywhere, at one weight and one size. Consistent iconography is a small detail that signals a large amount of care. This site uses the Lucide set throughout for exactly that consistency.
6. Add the proof only you have
The default look is generic because the content is generic. Real logos, real numbers, a real photo of a real person, a specific testimonial with a name: none of that can be generated, and all of it pulls a page toward looking human. Taste is partly just truth that a template cannot fake.
Score your site before and after
Run the AI Slop Score on your page, make the changes above, then run it again. You get a 0 to 100 score, the exact tells it found, and a prompt to fix the ones that remain.
Free, about a minute, no card.
Give the AI a better brief
The best time to avoid the AI look is before the model generates anything. A vague prompt gets the average. A specific one gets closer to you. When you brief a builder, hand it the raw materials of a real decision:
- Your palette and font, named explicitly, so it does not fall back to the defaults.
- A reference site you admire, described in words, so it has a target that is not the statistical middle.
- An explicit no-list: no purple gradient, no glass cards, no centred three-card layout, no emoji icons.
- One idea per section, so it builds structure with intent instead of stacking stock blocks.
A better brief gets you most of the way. The last stretch is a human pass on the specifics the model cannot judge for you: where the eye should land, what to cut, what deserves the emphasis. That pass is the taste, and it is still yours to add.
How to know it worked
Trust a measure, not your own eye, which has usually gone blind to a page it has stared at for weeks. Two checks: put your page beside a fresh AI-builder output and see whether a stranger could tell them apart, and run the design through a scorer built on the known tells. When the same page that scored as generic comes back looking deliberate, the work is done.
