Web is dead...and we have killed her.
It may be ironic coming from someone who has built and managed websites for longer than I'd like to admit online. But I never got into web for the love of websites alone.
What always drew me to web ecosystems was exactly that — they were ecosystems. Every function inside a company eventually connected back to the website, whether leadership acknowledged it or not.
Legal needed compliant disclosures publicly available to prevent litigation. Finance needed investor relations pages updated for shareholders. HR needed benefits information findable enough to actually attract candidates. And the C-suite would agonize for months over an "About" page — because it was one of the rare moments they were forced to publicly state what they actually stood for.
Web was never just a marketing and sales engine. It was a mirror of how a company operated.
The Shift That's Already Happening
Now, with AI and AEO, the function of a website has blurred. It's shifted from "where do people go to find us?" to "how do we make our content appear wherever someone is looking — while still controlling the message?"
That's a fundamentally different problem. And I think most companies haven't fully caught up to it yet.
But this doesn't mean companies no longer need a central hub of information or a way for the outside world to connect with them. What changes is how that connection happens.
It's agents and agent engines we need to think about now — not just human visitors clicking through a nav menu.
That shouldn't scare anyone. Those of us who've been in web have been building for machines far longer than ChatGPT existed.
A Quick Detour: How I Got Here
Before I did web exclusively, I was an engineer with genuinely lofty dreams of working for NASA. That became complicated when quantum mechanics made me dizzy.
Instead, I landed in a class called Design Thinking. It changed the entire course of my career — because it unlocked something that has driven every boss I've ever had a little crazy: systems-level thinking.
When I first started building websites, that kind of thinking became critical. You couldn't just design a homepage and call it done. A single "contact us" flow required:
- Compelling copy explaining why someone should reach out
- A clear brand and visual identity
- Metadata and SEO so anyone could find it
- A functional form
- A CRM connected to that form
- A privacy policy so no one got sued
- An email nurture flow for when someone submitted
- Field validation so it didn't overwhelm users into abandoning it
- Testing, so it actually worked
- An opt-out flow for the nurture series
- Ad tags for paid campaign optimization
- Analytics tracking post-launch to understand performance
Every launch was a puzzle. Every piece had to connect. And when one didn't, we all knew what was coming: "Why couldn't you just build a simple webpage?"
We all knew it was anything but simple.
Why AI Actually Excites Me
Here's where I think the opportunity is.
When you can automate many of those steps, agents don't replace the work — they elevate it. They free us from constraints so we can think at a higher level about what actually matters: the person on the other end.
If someone discovers you through an LLM, the form becomes less critical. The relationship can start differently — with the conversation that actually matters, not with the friction of filling out fields.
If you're not locked into rigid marketing automation rules, you can listen to an individual instead of optimizing for a persona.
I think agents can genuinely help us be more human with our customers — which is something the web, for all its interconnectedness, was never quite designed to do.
The Complexity We Can't Ignore
That said, I want to be honest about the mess we're walking into.
How do you avoid the world's strangest game of telephone — agents interpreting agents interpreting humans — until no one's sure what anyone actually meant? If every founder I've ever worked with had known exactly how to communicate their value to every customer on the first try, I'd have been out of a job a long time ago. That gap is real, and AI doesn't automatically close it.
So yes, the static website as we know it may be going the way of the Flash intro. But I still think companies need a source of truth for their messaging, a direct line of connection, and some meaningful interpretation of what a customer actually needs.
The shape of it will change. But the need won't disappear.
Where This Leaves Us
Web is dead — and the digital transformation era is here to stay.
I think the most exciting thing about this moment isn't the technology. It's the permission to think bigger about what we're actually building. To move past the checklist and toward the relationship.
If you're not sure where to start, that's okay. The tooling for most of this is still maturing, honestly. Start with your source of truth: what does your company actually stand for, and how clearly does that come through for both humans and machines?
Start there. Be curious. The rest is still being built — and that, I think, is the most exciting part.