# Build a form with AI

> Describe the form you need — or paste a link to one you already have — and AI drafts the fields, labels, and validation for you.

Select **Create Form** and you land in **AI Form Studio**. Type what you need in plain English, select **Generate form**, and Maxforms drafts the whole thing — questions, labels, field types, and validation — as a form you can then edit like any other. Nothing goes live until you publish it.

## Describe the form you want

1. Select **Create Form** from **Home**.
2. Type your description into **Describe your form, or paste a link to import…**
3. Select **Generate form** — the arrow at the end of the box — or press ⌘/Ctrl + Enter.

![AI Form Studio with its prompt box, suggestion chips, and Start from scratch link](/docs-assets/building-forms/ai-studio-1.png)

Be specific about the answers you need and you'll get closer on the first try. *"A volunteer sign-up form for a community garden: name, email, phone, which Saturdays they can help, and any allergies"* produces a form with a phone field that validates, a checkbox list of Saturdays, and a long-text box for allergies.

If you'd rather start from an example, the chips under the box — **Contact form**, **Customer feedback**, **Event registration**, **Job application**, **NPS survey**, **Bug report** — drop a ready-made description into the box that you can edit before generating. **Start from scratch** skips AI entirely and opens an empty builder.

Generating takes a few seconds. You'll see the steps go past — *Building your form*, then *Finalizing* — and a **Cancel** button if you change your mind. Cancelling throws the draft away.

## Rebuild a form you already have

The same box takes more than a description:

- **Paste a link.** Give it the address of a form that's live somewhere else and Maxforms fetches it and recreates the questions in Maxforms.
- **Attach a file.** Select **Attach** and upload a PDF or a photo of a paper form (PNG, JPG, or WEBP), one file at a time. Maxforms reads the fields off it and builds the digital version.

Treat the result as a first draft, not a photocopy — check every question and its options against the original before you publish.

## Change it by asking

After it generates you're in the **AI** tab of the builder: your form on the left, the conversation on the right. The **Describe a change…** box at the bottom keeps the same conversation going, so you can keep refining instead of starting over.

![The AI tab with the generated form on the left and the AI conversation on the right](/docs-assets/building-forms/ai-studio-2.png)

Ask for whatever you'd otherwise do by hand — *"Add a question asking how they heard about us, with options Friend, Social media, Flyer, Other"*, *"Make the phone number optional"*, *"Make it shorter"*. Each reply tells you what changed, and the form on the left updates as you watch.

You can switch to the **Build** tab at any point and edit by hand — drag questions around, change a field type, adjust validation. The two work on the same form, so you can go back and forth.

## Undo an AI change

Every AI turn leaves a checkpoint. Select **Restore to this point** under any earlier reply to roll the form back to how it looked then.

![The AI conversation, with Restore to this point under an earlier reply](/docs-assets/building-forms/ai-studio-3.png)

Restoring permanently removes the messages after that point, so Maxforms asks you to confirm first.

## Publish when you're happy

AI edits your **draft**. Your live form doesn't change until you select **Publish** (or **Publish changes** on a form that's already live), which is also your chance to review everything in the **Build** tab first. See [Form builder overview](/building-forms/form-builder-overview) for what publishing does.

## If Generate form is greyed out

The button only wakes up once there's something in the box — a description needs at least a few characters. If you pasted a very long block of text, trim it; the box has an upper limit.

## If you hit an AI usage limit

Every plan includes a monthly allowance of AI generations, refinements, and imports. When you run out, the chat box is replaced by a note saying so, and you carry on editing the form by hand in the **Build** tab — nothing you've already built is lost. The allowance resets at the start of each month, and higher plans include more; the Free plan is the tightest.

## If the imported form doesn't match the original

Importing works best on straightforward forms. Multi-page flows, questions that appear only after another answer, and unusual widgets often come through flattened or missing. Rather than re-importing, describe the gap in the chat — *"Add a second page with the billing questions"* — or fix it directly in the **Build** tab.