The future of discovery isn't optimizing for search engines anymore. People aren't searching—they're asking. And increasingly, they're not even the ones doing the asking.
AI agents are becoming the new gatekeepers, and they'll choose the path of least resistance. When these agents can access your product through protocols like the Model Context Protocol, they won't bother deciphering your marketing pages or fighting with your legacy APIs. Your visibility depends on speaking their language.
HubSpot learned this shift the hard way. Their empire of SEO-optimized content—crafted over a decade to dominate search rankings—crumbled when Google's AI started answering questions directly. Why read a 2000-word guide about email marketing when AI synthesizes the answer instantly? Their traffic vanished not because their content was wrong, but because humans never saw it.
This isn't just about lost traffic—it's about survival. Some companies are becoming "AI-friendly," their services and data flowing naturally through AI systems. Others are slipping into obscurity—present but unseen by the algorithms that increasingly control discovery.
Being "AI-equipped" isn't enough. Tomorrow's winners will be fully "AI-native," building products that AI can effortlessly understand and recommend. Don't just teach your teams to use AI tools—design every feature, API, and data structure for a world where machines mediate human choices.
The question isn't whether you use AI. It's whether AI can use you.
What about human experience layer? Do you see any ripple effects there?