Beyond static experiences: How AI is changing the next generation of websites

Ask most websites a specific question and they’ll respond with menus, predefined pages, and journeys. In this traditional model, visitors do most of the cognitive work: choosing a path and piecing together the information they need.

Better design and usability reduce frustration, but fixed journeys still leave visitors to find and assemble the answer themselves.

AI search platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity have made it common for people to ask a question in their own words and receive a direct, contextual answer.

Someone researching a university program, applying for a government service, or comparing professional advice is less willing to open 20 tabs and piece together an answer. They want to explain what they need and get specific results quickly.

Websites can meet this demand by doing more of the finding, filtering, and assembling. Organizations can use this approach to help audiences complete important actions online, take the next step sooner, and avoid unnecessary calls to service teams.

This marks a new role for websites: not just digital destinations, but experience engines built on trusted content, governed components, and real audience intent.

Want to watch the full discussion? Catch the webinar on demand.

From fixed to fluid: four eras of digital experience

The evolution of digital experience can be understood through four broad eras.

1. The System Era: Interfaces were built primarily for technical users. People had to learn the machine’s language.
2. The User Era: Interfaces made systems usable for non-technical people.
3. The Experience Era: Teams used accessibility, user research, personas and journey mapping to design better experiences for different audience groups.
4. The Intelligence Era: Rich experiences begin to respond to one person’s intent and context in the moment.

We are currently sitting between the Experience Era and the Intelligence Era – with people expecting to see more of those 'rich experiences.'

The Intelligence Era is the shift from fixed journeys to fluid, intent-driven experiences. A useful way to frame the current shift is from “designing for many” to “designing for me.”

What is a rich digital experience?

An intent-driven digital experience. A rich experience can respond to a need expressed by the visitor instead of forcing them into a path designed for an assumed persona.

In practice, it starts with something familiar: a person types a question into the search bar, in the same way they'd ask a member of staff.

A prospective student asks: "I finished high school with a C average and I want to study nursing close to home – what can I apply for?"

Instead of a list of course pages, they get the programs that match their qualifications, the entry requirements, the scholarships they're eligible for and the date of the next open day – with a link to start an application.

A resident asks: "I've just gone part-time at work and I'm struggling with my rent – what help can I get?"

Instead of a directory of departments, they get an explanation of what they're likely to qualify for, the evidence they'll need to provide and a direct link to the right form.

A potential client asks: "We're acquiring a competitor and I'm worried about the staff contracts – who do I need to speak to?"

Instead of a list of practice areas, they get the relevant expertise and services, related insights on the issue and the name of a specialist to contact.

A rich experience brings together a relevant answer, supporting information, useful options, and a clear next step around the visitor’s intent.

Asking, exploring, comparing, and acting become part of one journey.

In the webinar, we demonstrated this using Squiz Funnelback Search’s Conversational Search capability. Visitors could ask questions in their own words, receive answers drawn from approved content and move directly to relevant forms, links and next steps.

Why adding AI to a website isn’t enough

It’s tempting to treat this shift as an interface project: “simply add an AI assistant and the website becomes intelligent.”

But an AI-generated answer is only as reliable as the source material behind it. If that content is outdated, contradictory, or poorly structured, a new interface such as a chatbot can reproduce those problems faster and with greater confidence.

Governance matters, too. Like an intern or junior employee, AI needs clear boundaries, trusted sources, guidelines, and oversight before it can represent your organization. A modern, well-maintained platform can help provide these.

How to build a responsive experience engine

Rich experiences are built on trusted content, governed technology and real audience intent.

There is foundational work you can be doing right now to get all three ready for the Intelligence Era – and you don't need to fix your entire website first.

From there, it's a repeatable three-step cycle: strengthen the source, turn audience intent into progress, and use what you learn to improve the next experience.

1. Start with content you can trust

Before introducing an AI-driven experience, start with the source material behind it. Choose one priority audience need (something your audience is repeatedly trying to do on your website), assess how well the relevant content answers it, and identify the gaps, contradictions and accessibility issues most likely to affect the outcome.

In the webinar, Squiz Content Intelligence demonstrated how teams can do this at scale through its AI Readiness Auditor. It scores your content by topic, shows which areas are AI-ready, and gives prioritized, actionable recommendations on what to fix first for the biggest impact. The demo showed one topic containing only 51 pages generated approximately 4,500 possible audience questions, illustrating why a manual audit cannot provide the same breadth.

At the same time, the built-in Accessibility Auditor pinpoints WCAG 2.2 AA and AAA issues, so you improve discoverability and accessibility together.

The goal is a stronger source: content that is clearer, more consistent, and more usable by people, on-site experiences, and AI search platforms.

2. Turn audience intent into progress

Once the source content is strong enough, the next step is to give people a governed way to express what they need. On-site conversational search can let visitors ask questions in their own words and receive direct answers drawn from approved content.

Squiz Funnelback Search’s Conversational Search capability puts this into practice by using approved content to generate answers to visitors’ questions. Editors can place useful content and calls to action alongside each answer, while Squiz DXP can connect people to relevant forms, data, and services.

This shortens the distance between information and action. Someone asking about eligibility can see the relevant criteria and form. Someone looking for an event can receive the answer, date, location, and registration step in one place. The goal isn’t to answer as many questions as possible, but to help more people resolve their needs digitally.

3. Build a continuous improvement loop

Intent-driven experiences also give organizations a better understanding of what people are trying to accomplish. Page views and clicks show where someone went, but the questions people ask reveal the fuller need behind the visit.

Teams can measure resolution, operational demand and audience behavior, then use those insights to improve the next experience. That creates a continuous cycle:

1. Ask: A person expresses what they need in their own words.
2. Answer: The experience uses trusted sources to provide relevant information, options and a next step.
3. Learn: The interaction reveals audience intent, unresolved needs and gaps in the digital estate.
4. Improve: Teams strengthen the source content and refine the experience.

Each interaction can make the next one more useful. Starting with one focused use case lets teams test what works and improve it before expanding, which reduces risk.

The website is becoming more important, not less

The rise of AI has sparked plenty of claims that websites are becoming obsolete, but the opposite is closer to the truth.

Websites remain the authoritative, governed foundation for an organization’s content and services. People still need a place to understand information, assess options, and take action, and AI search platforms still need reliable source material to retrieve and represent accurately.

What’s changing is how they’re used.

Instead of asking every visitor to understand the organization’s structure, the experience starts by responding to the person’s intent. Digital teams will spend less time mapping every possible journey and more time managing the content, components, and rules that guide each experience.

The organizations that pull ahead won't be the ones with the biggest AI transformation plan. They'll be the ones who moved a single high-value experience from fixed to fluid, proved it worked, and scaled from there.

And you don’t need to overhaul your entire website to get started.

Begin by taking this quick website readiness quiz to see how ready your site is to support richer, intent-driven experiences.

It takes a few minutes, and if you don't like your score, we'd love to talk it through with you.