For years, websites have been built around a familiar structure: pages, menus, and navigation. This architecture was designed to help users browse and self-serve, organising large volumes of information into digestible sections. But as digital behaviour evolves, this model is showing its age.
The rise of AI-powered interfaces, voice interaction, and conversational platforms is reshaping how users expect to engage with digital experiences. Instead of navigating through layers of content, users increasingly want to ask questions and receive direct answers. This shift demands a fundamental rethink of how websites are designed, structured, and delivered.
Traditional websites are essentially digital filing cabinets. They rely on users knowing what they’re looking for and being willing to click through multiple layers to find it. But this approach is increasingly at odds with how people interact with technology today.
Search engines, chatbots, and voice assistants have trained users to expect immediacy. They want to ask a question and get a response. They want to complete tasks without navigating a menu or scrolling through a sitemap. The interface itself is becoming the experience.
This shift is not just about convenience. It reflects a deeper change in user expectations. People are no longer satisfied with browsing. They want to interact. They want to converse. And they want results.
Large language models (LLMs) and AI-enhanced search platforms are leading the way. Google’s transformation of its search interface into a conversational experience is a clear signal. Users can now ask complex questions and receive curated answers, product recommendations, and even purchase options – all without visiting a brand’s website.
This is the beginning of a new era: one where websites are no longer destinations, but data sources. The experience happens elsewhere, in search results, voice assistants, and AI agents. If your content isn’t structured to be surfaced in these environments, it may never be seen.
As Alex Lee noted, “There’s always a shift towards circumventing the multiple to just bring things back to a singular interface”. That interface might be a chatbot, a voice assistant, or an AI-powered search engine, but it won’t be a homepage.
The homepage has long been considered the front door of a website, but in the AI era, users rarely enter through the front. They arrive via deep links, search queries, and voice commands. They expect to land directly on the answer – not the introduction. This means every page must be treated as a landing page, every interaction must be optimised for conversion, and every component must deliver value immediately.
It also means rethinking how content is presented. Instead of long-form text and nested menus, brands should offer concise answers, interactive elements, and clear calls to action. The goal is not to guide the user through a journey: it’s to meet them where they are and help them achieve their goal.
In a conversational model, the user’s intent is the starting point. The architecture must be built around delivering outcomes, not organising information. This requires a shift from page-based navigation to service-based interaction.
Instead of building pages, brands must build capabilities. Instead of menus, they must offer prompts. Instead of static content, they must deliver dynamic responses.
This also means designing for multiple entry points. Users may arrive via voice, search, social, or embedded widgets. The experience must be consistent, coherent, and context-aware, regardless of how it begins.
Visibility in the AI era depends on how well your content can be understood and surfaced by machines. Traditional SEO is no longer enough. Brands must embrace structured content strategies that make their information machine-readable and context-aware.
This includes using schema markup, building knowledge graphs, and creating modular content that can be repurposed across channels. It means ensuring that your brand is not just present in search results, but is the answer in AI-generated summaries.
Without this optimisation, branded queries may bring up competitor content or third-party sources. Your voice, accuracy, and authority can be lost in machine-generated responses. Structuring content for AI is not just a technical task: it is a strategic imperative.
While voice interfaces are growing, users still want visual confirmation. They want to see options, compare results, and make informed decisions – all within a single screen. This means that even conversational interfaces must be designed with visual feedback in mind.
Whether it’s a chatbot presenting cards, a voice assistant showing results on a screen, or an AI-enhanced search engine offering clickable options, the experience must be both conversational and visual.
This duality is essential. Users may ask with their voice, but they want to choose with their eyes. Designing for this blend of interaction styles is key to creating intuitive, effective experiences.
AI enables a level of personalisation that was previously impossible. Experiences can now adapt in real time based on user behaviour, intent signals, and historical data. This transforms the website from a static repository into a responsive, conversational interface.
Remarkable’s approach to personalisation uses machine learning to tailor content, offers, and journeys dynamically. We move beyond segmentation and personas to deliver predictive, one-to-one engagement at scale. This increases relevance, reduces friction, and drives conversion.
For example, a user browsing a travel site might be shown personalised itineraries based on previous searches, current location, and seasonal trends. A banking customer might receive tailored product recommendations based on life stage, financial goals, and recent activity. These are not generic experiences. They are intelligent conversations.
Consistency and scalability are critical in this new environment. Design systems provide the foundation for delivering coherent experiences across channels, devices, and interfaces.
As Alex Lee explained, “You’re building out your design system for all the different touch points — not just for a website, but for Instagram, Facebook, shopping results, and voice”. This ensures that brand expression is consistent, accessible, and adaptable.
But design systems must also support differentiation. In a world of standardised interfaces, brands must find ways to stand out. This means balancing efficiency with originality, structure with creativity, and familiarity with surprise.
As AI tools like Figma become more capable of generating layouts and components, there’s a risk of homogenisation. Interfaces start to look the same. Experiences become predictable. Creativity gets squeezed out.
Designers must push back. They must be the fly in the ointment — the ones who inject personality, disruption, and originality into increasingly standardised systems. They must challenge conventions, explore new formats, and create experiences that are not only functional but memorable.
As Alex put it, “AI can give me other people’s opinions of the future, but it can’t give me the future. I have to invent the future”.
The shift from pages to conversations is not a trend. It’s a transformation. It requires brands to rethink their architecture, restructure their content, and redesign their experiences. It demands a new approach to visibility, personalisation, and platform optimisation.
At Remarkable, we help clients navigate this change. We combine strategy, creativity, and technology to deliver experiences that convert. We build intelligent interfaces that engage users, deliver answers, and drive results.
In the AI era, your website is no longer a collection of pages. It is a living, learning, responsive system. It is not what you build. It is what your customer asks for, and how well you answer.
