The disappearing homepage: how AI agents rewrite digital discovery

Remember when discovering a new brand meant typing their URL into your browser or stumbling across their homepage through a Google search? Those days are quickly becoming a relic of the digital past. We're witnessing something revolutionary: the rise of AI agents as the new front door to consumer discovery, fundamentally reshaping how people find, research, and interact with brands.

While we've been obsessing over website redesigns and homepage conversions, consumers have been quietly shifting their discovery patterns in ways that would make any CMO's head spin. Nearly two-thirds of Americans now report having used AI, with this "utilitarian consumer" behavior showing people adopt tools that help them do what they already need to do, but in a better, faster, cheaper way.

The numbers tell a stark story

But here's where it gets really interesting: 91% of AI users reach for their favorite general AI tool for nearly every job, treating these platforms as their default starting point for virtually everything. Think about that for a moment. Instead of going to individual websites, people are increasingly starting their journeys inside AI agents like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google's Gemini.

The statistics paint a vivid picture. 39% of shoppers (and 54% of Gen Z) are already using AI for product discovery, with Gen Z shoppers being 10x more likely than baby boomers to frequently use AI this way. This isn't some distant future prediction. It's happening right now, reshaping the entire customer journey.

Understanding zero-click search

To understand how dramatically things are changing, we need to talk about what's happening to traditional web traffic. Recent studies show that zero-click searches now account for nearly 60% of Google searches ending without a click. Let that sink in. More than half of all searches now end without anyone visiting a website.

The brutal reality

The impact has been swift and brutal for many businesses. Some sites are experiencing up to a 70% decrease in website traffic due to Google's AI Overviews, which launched in May 2024, with position 1 click-through rates dropping by 34.5% when AI Overviews are present.

Since the launch of Google's AI Overviews earlier this year, the number of searches for news that result in no click-throughs to news websites has grown from 56% to nearly 69%.

Real casualties

Real businesses are feeling this pain acutely. The Planet D, a travel blog, recently shut down after its traffic dropped 90% following Google's introduction of AI Overviews. Chegg has reported significant declines in non-subscriber traffic, coinciding with AI Overviews answering homework and study questions that previously drove traffic to educational sites.

Why AI agents are winning the discovery game

The reason for this seismic shift isn't just technological. It's fundamentally about user experience. AI-generated traffic converts at a rate 700% higher than social media traffic and 200% higher than all other sources of traffic minus social media. When people find what they're looking for through AI agents, they're not just casually browsing. They're highly intent-driven and ready to take action.

AI shopping assistants have evolved far beyond traditional chatbots, now serving as digital front-line workers that guide users, answer product questions, and deliver highly personalized product recommendations across all stages of the customer journey. They're providing what we've always promised but struggled to deliver: truly personalized experiences at scale.

The sophistication is remarkable

These new AI-powered assistants use intent prediction and personalization, anticipating what a customer needs based on behavioral cues and contextual data, rather than waiting for prompts. They're essentially creating a concierge-level experience for every interaction.

The brand strategy earthquake

For brand strategists, this shift represents nothing short of an earthquake in how we think about customer touchpoints. Brands are beginning to adopt AI agents that embody their unique values, personality and purpose, serving as digital extensions of their brand identity.

But here's the catch: if consumers are starting their journeys inside AI agents, traditional brand discovery through websites, homepages, and even search results becomes less relevant. Brands must begin to deploy AI agents as reliable, strategic assets that represent them with a local touch that manual efforts struggle to achieve.

The implications are staggering

Brand Positioning: Your brand positioning now needs to work within AI conversations, not just on your website. If an AI agent is recommending solutions to a customer's problem, will your brand be mentioned? Will it be described accurately?

Brand Voice: AI agents can maintain brand voice and tone while ensuring content is grammatically sound, SEO-optimized, and aligned with audience needs, but only if you've properly trained them on your brand guidelines.

Customer Experience: The customer experience is increasingly happening in spaces you don't control. AI agents engage customers in conversations, with these longer queries and responses providing a new stream of data that marketers can draw on to improve experience and drive revenue.

Content strategy in the age of AI intermediaries

Traditional content strategy assumed people would visit your website to consume your content. That assumption is crumbling fast. While AI tools excel at scaling operations and automating workflows, they lack the nuanced understanding and creativity that only human expertise can provide, creating both challenges and opportunities for content creators.

The new content game isn't about driving traffic to your site. It's about ensuring your expertise and perspective get surfaced by AI agents when relevant conversations happen. People are increasingly seeking out content with authentic voices and first-hand perspectives, clicking on web content that helps them learn more, such as in-depth reviews, original posts, unique perspectives, or thoughtful first-person analysis.

This means your content strategy needs to evolve in several key ways

Depth Over Scale: Rather than churning out surface-level content for search traffic, invest in creating genuinely valuable, expert-level content that AI agents will want to reference and cite.

Authority Building: AI agents are becoming pivotal in creating thought leadership campaigns that position brands as industry innovators addressing key market challenges, enhancing brand authority and engagement among target audiences.

Multi-Modal Thinking: Google's AI Mode can process text, images, and will soon handle live video feeds, making it versatile for various queries, so your content needs to work across different formats and mediums.

Digital experience design for the post-homepage world

The implications for digital experience design are profound. If fewer people are reaching your homepage, what does that mean for how you structure your digital presence?

Marketers who can effectively combine AI's capabilities with human expertise will have a clear advantage heading into 2025, crafting campaigns that are both scalable and deeply resonant. This suggests a new approach to digital experience that's less about funneling people to your website and more about ensuring your brand shows up meaningfully wherever conversations about your space are happening.

Consider these shifts

From Homepage-Centric to Experience-Distributed: Your brand experience can no longer assume people will start at your homepage. Every touchpoint, whether it's an AI conversation, a social media interaction, or a direct link, needs to work as a potential entry point.

From Traffic-Focused to Outcome-Focused: Google's Media Lab team has recently pivoted hard to outcome-based planning, which has resulted in incremental performance gains. The focus shifts from driving traffic to driving meaningful interactions, regardless of where they happen.

From Static to Dynamic: AI agents provide the building blocks for laser-focused campaigns that deliver personalization at scale, requiring your digital experiences to be more adaptive and responsive to context.

The strategic response: embracing the new reality

Forward-thinking brands aren't fighting this trend. They're leaning into it. Companies leveraging AI agents in their marketing strategies are cutting costs by 35% while achieving unprecedented audience engagement.

Here's how smart brands are adapting

AI-First Content Strategy: Companies like Wyndly have built automated workflows that turn high-performing video content into SEO-optimized articles, allowing them to increase content output 5× while growing organic traffic 20× and boosting organic customer sign-ups by 28%. They're creating content specifically designed to be surfaced by AI agents.

Direct Agent Relationships: Some brands are building their own AI agents or partnering with platforms to ensure their voice is represented. Already, thousands of organizations, including many Fortune 500 companies, are using platforms like Copilot Studio to build AI agents and automations.

Data-Rich Experiences: AI agents analyze countless data points, browsing history, purchase patterns, and site interactions, to uncover hidden customer segments that even seasoned marketers might overlook. Brands are ensuring they're feeding rich, structured data to these systems.

What this means for your brand in 2025

The transformation is accelerating, not slowing down. 2025 will be the year where we really start to see the profound impact AI will have, with AI becoming an integral part of customer interactions, with both consumers and businesses embracing its capabilities.

Experts predict that in 2025, AI investments will shift decisively from experimentation to execution, with companies abandoning generic AI applications in favor of targeted solutions that solve specific, high-value business problems.

The brands that will thrive are those that recognize this isn't about technology replacing human connection. It's about technology enabling more meaningful, relevant connections at precisely the right moments in a customer's journey.

The new imperative

Your homepage may be disappearing as the primary entry point to your brand, but your opportunity to create meaningful relationships with customers is actually expanding. The question isn't whether AI agents will reshape digital discovery. It's whether your brand will be ready when they do.

The future of brand discovery isn't about having the best homepage. It's about being the best answer to your customers' questions, whenever and wherever they ask them. In a world where AI agents are becoming the new front door to discovery, that's not just a marketing strategy. It's a business imperative.

"In a world where AI agents are becoming the new front door to discovery, being the best answer isn't just a marketing strategy. It's a business imperative."

Key takeaways

• Nearly 60% of Google searches now end without a click, fundamentally changing how brands are discovered
• AI-generated traffic converts 700% higher than social media and 200% higher than other sources
• 39% of shoppers (54% of Gen Z) are already using AI for product discovery, with adoption accelerating rapidly
• Traditional homepage-centric strategies are becoming obsolete as AI agents become the primary discovery mechanism
• Success requires shifting from traffic metrics to outcome-based thinking, creating AI-citeable content, and building brand presence within AI conversations
• The opportunity isn't disappearing, it's expanding, but brands must adapt to meet customers where they increasingly start their journey: inside AI agents

Sources

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McKinsey Digital. (2024). "AI in the Workplace Report."

Menlo Ventures. (2024). "State of Consumer AI Report."

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Harvard Business Review. (2024). "The Future of Digital Marketing with AI."

Digiday. (2024). "AI Platforms and Traffic Analysis Report."

NPR. (2024). "Online Publishers and Google AI Overviews Impact Study."