When Discovery Disappears: What Happens to Websites in an AI-First Internet
For most of the web’s history, websites have been designed around a single job: discovery. Be findable. Be indexable. Be optimized enough to earn the click.
AI search has quietly broken that longstanding contract, sending brands and agencies alike scrambling.
As answers move upstream into chat interfaces, assistants, and agent-driven workflows, the role of the website is changing. Discovery is no longer guaranteed to happen on your website. And increasingly, it doesn’t need to.
That sounds threatening at first, and explains the frenzy. But what if that perceived threat is actually an opportunity?
What if AI search is opening the door to something the web hasn’t had in a long time? The freedom to focus on experience again. A shift we at Edgar Allan have been advocating for just as long.
Discovery and destination are no longer the same thing
This shift came up in our recent conversation with Profound, especially during Josh Blyskal’s discussion of Model Context Protocol (MCP), server-to-server interactions, and agent behavior.
Search used to function like a hallway, pointing users towards destinations. Now that answer engines are becoming mainstream, the hallway is disappearing.
Today, information is brought directly to the user, and decisions are made before a click ever happens. Further, AI agents are increasingly the ones doing the browsing, comparing, and evaluating, not humans.
That means that discovery and destination are no longer tightly coupled, which changes what websites have traditionally been for.
When discovery moves upstream, pressure moves downstream
In the link-based search world we all came to know, websites had to do everything at once:
- Explain what you do
- Prove credibility
- Capture attention
- Convert the user
All while satisfying search engines and keeping SEO and content teams aligned enough to avoid turning every page into a muddy compromise.
And that’s why so many sites ended up bloated, repetitive, overly performative, and a downright pain to navigate. Pages weren’t designed for humans to consume and connect with; they were designed to be found.
AI search alleviates that pressure by enabling discovery within answer engines. So now, websites don’t have to front-load every explanation or keyword variation, and their job shifts from being discovered to being experienced.
What replaces SEO theater? Real usefulness.
The decoupling of discovery from destination that Josh described changes what sites are designed to accomplish. He framed this as a multi-tiered web:
- A machine layer, where models query APIs, structured data, and systems directly
- A human layer, where people still visit sites to explore, evaluate, and feel confident about the brand and their potential choice of it
In the new model, the website stops being a billboard and starts being a destination people want to visit. Not a funnel or a keyword container, but a place that answers deeper questions.
That's a meaningful shift. When you're no longer designing primarily for discovery, you can finally design for clarity instead of coverage, flow instead of friction, and understanding instead of dry extraction.
Experience matters more when it’s no longer doing everything
There’s a misconception that if AI handles discovery, websites matter less. We don’t believe that’s true.
When a user clicks through to a website after an AI system has summarized, recommended, or shortlisted it, the bar is higher, and the visit becomes more meaningful. If a person clicks into a site after getting basics from the AI, their visit is inherently more intentional. But then the site’s experience can either confirm trust or shatter it.
That’s when a different set of questions starts to matter:
- Does the site reinforce what the AI model said about your brand?
- Does the experience validate the model's recommendation?
- Does it help the user feel oriented, confident, and informed?
The answers to these questions aren’t found through SEO tactics. They’re found in how the experience actually holds up.
The opportunity most teams are missing
The real opportunity in an AI-first internet isn’t about gaming discovery. It’s about letting go of it.
This creates a much healthier division of labor:
- If AI models can handle the “what”, websites can focus on the “why” and “how”.
- If agents can retrieve facts, sites can deliver meaning.
- If discovery becomes ambient, experience becomes decisive.
And all of this aligns with what users already want (and have wanted for a while): fewer pages optimized to rank in search, and more destinations that are worth spending time on.
Where this leaves websites and teams right now
AI search isn’t eliminating the need for websites, but it is clarifying their role.
Websites don’t need to perform for algorithms the way they used to. Instead, they need to hold up once the click happens.
At Edgar Allan, we don’t see this as a channel shift. We see it as an experience reset. AEO isn’t about forcing answers onto pages. It’s about ensuring that what people encounter matches what they were told to expect.
As discovery fades into the background, experience becomes the differentiator.
That’s an opportunity the web hasn’t had in a long time.
Read more from the Edgar Allan Blog.
- What AI Search Actually Rewards: Expertise, POV, and Saying Something Real
- Machines Are Reading Your Website (And They’re Probably Getting Your Brand All Wrong)
- Machines Are Reading Your Website (And They’re Probably Getting Your Brand All Wrong) Part 2
- From Discovery to Decision: How AEO Changed the CRO Playbook
Discovery and destination are no longer the same thing
This shift came up in our recent conversation with Profound, especially during Josh Blyskal’s discussion of Model Context Protocol (MCP), server-to-server interactions, and agent behavior.
Search used to function like a hallway, pointing users towards destinations. Now that answer engines are becoming mainstream, the hallway is disappearing.
Today, information is brought directly to the user, and decisions are made before a click ever happens. Further, AI agents are increasingly the ones doing the browsing, comparing, and evaluating, not humans.
That means that discovery and destination are no longer tightly coupled, which changes what websites have traditionally been for.
When discovery moves upstream, pressure moves downstream
In the link-based search world we all came to know, websites had to do everything at once:
- Explain what you do
- Prove credibility
- Capture attention
- Convert the user
All while satisfying search engines and keeping SEO and content teams aligned enough to avoid turning every page into a muddy compromise.
And that’s why so many sites ended up bloated, repetitive, overly performative, and a downright pain to navigate. Pages weren’t designed for humans to consume and connect with; they were designed to be found.
AI search alleviates that pressure by enabling discovery within answer engines. So now, websites don’t have to front-load every explanation or keyword variation, and their job shifts from being discovered to being experienced.
What replaces SEO theater? Real usefulness.
The decoupling of discovery from destination that Josh described changes what sites are designed to accomplish. He framed this as a multi-tiered web:
- A machine layer, where models query APIs, structured data, and systems directly
- A human layer, where people still visit sites to explore, evaluate, and feel confident about the brand and their potential choice of it
In the new model, the website stops being a billboard and starts being a destination people want to visit. Not a funnel or a keyword container, but a place that answers deeper questions.
That's a meaningful shift. When you're no longer designing primarily for discovery, you can finally design for clarity instead of coverage, flow instead of friction, and understanding instead of dry extraction.
Experience matters more when it’s no longer doing everything
There’s a misconception that if AI handles discovery, websites matter less. We don’t believe that’s true.
When a user clicks through to a website after an AI system has summarized, recommended, or shortlisted it, the bar is higher, and the visit becomes more meaningful. If a person clicks into a site after getting basics from the AI, their visit is inherently more intentional. But then the site’s experience can either confirm trust or shatter it.
That’s when a different set of questions starts to matter:
- Does the site reinforce what the AI model said about your brand?
- Does the experience validate the model's recommendation?
- Does it help the user feel oriented, confident, and informed?
The answers to these questions aren’t found through SEO tactics. They’re found in how the experience actually holds up.
The opportunity most teams are missing
The real opportunity in an AI-first internet isn’t about gaming discovery. It’s about letting go of it.
This creates a much healthier division of labor:
- If AI models can handle the “what”, websites can focus on the “why” and “how”.
- If agents can retrieve facts, sites can deliver meaning.
- If discovery becomes ambient, experience becomes decisive.
And all of this aligns with what users already want (and have wanted for a while): fewer pages optimized to rank in search, and more destinations that are worth spending time on.
Where this leaves websites and teams right now
AI search isn’t eliminating the need for websites, but it is clarifying their role.
Websites don’t need to perform for algorithms the way they used to. Instead, they need to hold up once the click happens.
At Edgar Allan, we don’t see this as a channel shift. We see it as an experience reset. AEO isn’t about forcing answers onto pages. It’s about ensuring that what people encounter matches what they were told to expect.
As discovery fades into the background, experience becomes the differentiator.
That’s an opportunity the web hasn’t had in a long time.
Read more from the Edgar Allan Blog.
- What AI Search Actually Rewards: Expertise, POV, and Saying Something Real
- Machines Are Reading Your Website (And They’re Probably Getting Your Brand All Wrong)
- Machines Are Reading Your Website (And They’re Probably Getting Your Brand All Wrong) Part 2
- From Discovery to Decision: How AEO Changed the CRO Playbook