What is Netlify?
Netlify is an AI app builder that gets web projects off the ground fast. You describe what you want, choose an AI agent, and the platform writes the code, configures the backend, and deploys everything to a global network. The agents know your project’s environment, settings, and infrastructure from the first prompt, so they can set up databases, serverless functions, forms, and user auth as part of the same build.
The result lands at a live preview URL before anything touches production. Teams can review, iterate, and roll back without a separate hosting step or deployment script. For anyone building AI-powered web experiences, Netlify also gives agents direct access to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google through a single built-in connection. The AI website builder and the model layer live in the same place.
Netlify Video
Features & Benefits
- Agent Runners: prompt Claude, Gemini, or Codex from your dashboard to build new apps or update existing ones; agents already know your code, environment variables, build settings, and deployment pipeline, so they can configure backend logic, forms, and auth without you re-explaining the project each time
- AI Gateway: give your AI app builder project built-in access to models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google through a single connection; no separate accounts or API keys required; prompts and model outputs are never stored
- Deploy Previews: generate a live preview URL for every change before it reaches production; roll back any version with one click
- Observability: monitor request traffic, function performance, cache hit rates, and latency across your app in a single dashboard; trace individual requests to pinpoint failures, filter by endpoint or status code, and compare traffic before and after a deploy to catch regressions; no setup required
- Serverless Functions: add backend API endpoints and scheduled or background jobs to your app without managing a server
- Database and Blob Storage: persist app data and user-uploaded files without connecting a third-party service
- Built-in Forms: collect form submissions with a single HTML attribute, no external service needed
- Built-in Auth: handle user sign-in natively without wiring up a separate identity provider
- Role-Based Access Controls: set which team members can prompt agents, review changes, or approve deploys; every agent action is logged, tracked, and reversible
- Global Edge Network: serve every visitor fast with automatic HTTPS, DDoS protection, and 99.99% uptime
- Environment and Secret Management: store and manage API keys and secrets per team across all projects
What can Netlify do?
- Build a web app from a text prompt
- Build a website with AI
- Deploy a full-stack app to a global CDN
- Preview every code change before it goes live
- Connect an app to OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google models
- Add a backend API to a web project
- Roll back a live site to any previous version
- Handle user sign-in without an external auth tool
Real-World Applications
A founder building a first product can go from a text prompt to a working app with a shareable preview URL in one session. No server setup, no deployment config. The AI app builder handles the code, the backend logic, and the deploy, so the focus stays on the idea itself.
On bigger teams, Netlify can shift who’s able to ship. A marketing manager who needs a campaign page or a lead intake form doesn’t have to wait on an engineering sprint. They prompt an agent, the change lands in a Deploy Preview for review, and role controls determine who approves it. Developers stay on work that actually needs them.
For teams building customer-facing AI features, like a support triage tool or a document processor, agents can call OpenAI or Anthropic models through AI Gateway directly inside serverless functions. Usage is tracked per project and the prototype runs on the same infrastructure as production, so scaling doesn’t require a rebuild.
Agencies juggling multiple client sites spend a lot of time on small requests. A copy change here, a new section there, a broken layout that needs a quick fix. Netlify’s AI website builder lets those tasks go through an agent instead of a developer. The agent makes the change, a Deploy Preview goes to the client for sign-off, and the update ships once approved. Developers stay out of the queue for work that doesn’t need them. For studios running five, ten, or twenty active client projects, that throughput compounds fast.
