Artificial intelligence isn’t just for big tech companies anymore. Thanks to accessible APIs and cloud-based tools, AI has become something that solo developers and small teams can seamlessly integrate into their own projects—even on platforms like Wix.
Wix is best known as a drag-and-drop website builder, but when you add Velo by Wix, it becomes a serious development environment. That’s where things get interesting for AI enthusiasts. Velo gives developers backend functionality, custom routing, database tools, and—most importantly—the ability to connect to third-party APIs. This means you can bring in powerful AI services from companies like OpenAI, Google Cloud, and Hugging Face, and use them directly within your Wix site.
If you’re building an app, tool, or user experience that could benefit from natural language understanding, image recognition, smart search, or personalization—AI is within reach. Let’s explore how developers can use Velo and API calls to bring intelligent features to life on Wix.
The Gateway: HTTP Functions in Velo
At the heart of any AI integration is communication. You’re sending data (like a user’s message, image, or search query) to an external AI service and receiving a response (such as a summary, suggestion, label, or answer). With Velo, this is done through HTTP functions.
These backend functions act as custom endpoints. They can securely handle requests from your frontend, format them for the API, send them out, and process the results before delivering a response back to the user. You get full control over how data flows, how it’s stored, and how it’s displayed—all from within the Wix environment.
Let’s say you’re building a customer support page with a chatbot. You could set up a form that takes user questions, then pass those questions to an OpenAI API via a backend HTTP function. The function sends the user’s input to GPT-4, receives a reply, and passes that back to the page—all in real time, with no extra infrastructure needed.
AI Use Cases That Work Well on Wix
So what kinds of AI features can you actually build into a Wix site? A lot more than you might expect.
For example, if you’re running a blog or content-heavy site, you can use AI to automatically generate SEO meta descriptions or suggest blog titles based on your post text. Just pass the content to a text-generation model via API and return a few options for the user to choose from. With a little Velo logic, you can even automate it as part of a publishing workflow.
If you're managing a membership site or customer portal, AI can help with personalized recommendations. Feed user activity data into a model, and get back customized suggestions for products, articles, events, or services—then render them dynamically using Velo’s database and page logic.
Want to add image recognition? Use tools like Google Vision AI or Microsoft Azure Computer Vision to analyze user-uploaded photos and return tags or categories. That’s incredibly useful for organizing user-generated content or building niche search engines.
And then there’s the obvious one: chatbots. With OpenAI’s APIs or other NLP providers, you can build a conversational assistant that lives on your site and helps users navigate, answer FAQs, or even provide therapy-like support. With Velo, it’s easy to store chat history, personalize responses based on logged-in user data, or even fine-tune which topics the bot is allowed to handle.
Working with APIs in Velo
The actual mechanics of connecting to an AI service in Velo are straightforward. You’ll use the fetch function in the backend to send a POST request to the service’s API endpoint, along with any headers and a JSON body. Most AI APIs require an authorization token, so you’ll want to store that securely in your site’s Secrets Manager rather than hard-coding it.
On the frontend, you’d just import that function and call it when the user submits a message. It’s clean, modular, and secure—and because Velo runs the backend code on Wix’s servers, you don’t have to manage your own infrastructure or expose your API keys.
Security, Rate Limits, and Costs
Of course, with great power comes great caution. AI APIs often charge per token or request, so you’ll want to implement safeguards like rate limiting, caching, or user quotas—especially on public-facing sites.
Fortunately, Velo gives you tools to monitor and control how data is handled. You can restrict backend functions to logged-in users, store logs in a Wix Data collection, or add rules to control who can make requests and how often. This lets you strike a balance between flexibility and safety.
It’s also worth being intentional about user experience. Not every site needs full AI integration—but where it fits, it can provide delightful, personalized, and efficient interactions that really elevate your brand.
A Platform That Can Think
There’s something powerful about building intelligent features without needing to leave your platform. That’s what Wix and Velo offer when it comes to AI. You can go from idea to working prototype in days—not weeks—because everything you need is in one place: a visual editor, a database, secure backend functions, and dynamic routing.
Instead of spinning up a server, setting up authentication, and wiring up frontend frameworks, you’re focusing on the logic that actually matters: how your users interact with your site, and how AI can make those interactions smarter.
Whether you’re building a niche tool for your business, a creative project for your portfolio, or a feature-rich client solution, Wix gives you the infrastructure—and Velo gives you the control. Add AI into that mix, and you’re not just building websites. You’re building experiences that respond, adapt, and evolve.