AI Website Modernization Ladder
Add AI guidance, personalized media, and customer-language optimization in stages
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 96%
The modernization ladder introduces AI according to readiness and practical value. First, add meaningful conversational guidance so visitors can ask for what they need instead of traversing every page. Next, test inexpensive AI-assisted video for product demonstrations, personalization, translation, and localization, measuring whether smaller viewing audiences convert at higher rates. More advanced teams can train an agent on founder knowledge, positioning, and sales narratives to create a consistent guided experience. Finally, use language models behind the scenes to role-play target customers, identify jargon, and edit product pages for clarity. As conversational experiences mature, teams should shift measurement from page depth and bounce rate toward the content, objections, and outcomes found in visitor conversations.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against The Grain as a staged set of actions marketers can take to adapt websites for AI.
Core principles
- 01Build for customers rather than inherited search conventions
- 02Reduce the work required to find the right information
- 03Use conversation to guide visitors instead of forcing page-by-page navigation
- 04Test personalized media where it can improve conversion
- 05Train AI on positioning and customer language
How to run it
- 1
Install meaningful AI chat
Give visitors a conversational way to find products, research, support, or next steps without manually navigating the full site.
Pro tip Train the chat experience on approved product information and common customer questions.
Watch out A generic chatbot that cannot guide visitors is not a meaningful integration.
- 2
Pilot AI video
Create short demonstrations for selected products or features and test their effect on comprehension and conversion.
Pro tip Start where explanation is difficult in text but easy to demonstrate visually.
Watch out Do not assume view count alone determines whether the experiment works.
- 3
Personalize and localize media
Use known visitor context to tailor useful content and translate successful videos into priority languages.
Pro tip Begin with broad, consented context before attempting individual-level personalization.
Watch out Avoid personalization based on sensitive or unreliable data.
- 4
Train a trusted expert agent
Encode the founder's or best salesperson's positioning, product rationale, and common answers into a guided agent.
Pro tip Use reviewed source material and regularly test the agent's claims.
Watch out Do not let an unverified avatar invent product capabilities or commitments.
- 5
Role-play the customer
Ask language models to evaluate product and marketing pages from the target persona's perspective.
Pro tip Supply a precise persona, use case, and stage of awareness.
Watch out Synthetic feedback should complement rather than replace real customer research.
- 6
Measure conversational outcomes
Analyze which conversations create useful actions, which stall, and what successful or unsuccessful interactions have in common.
Pro tip Connect conversations to qualified next steps while respecting privacy.
Watch out Traditional page metrics alone will miss the quality of the guided experience.
In the wild
A global software company produces a short AI-assisted video for a complex feature, tests it on the relevant product page, and then dubs the successful version into its highest-priority languages. It compares conversion among viewers with the existing text-only journey and uses conversational chat to answer follow-up questions.
→ The company expands useful product education without recreating every video manually.
A founder records approved explanations of why the product exists, who it serves, and how it differs. The team uses these materials to train a website agent, then tests its responses against the product documentation and sales playbook before release.
→ Visitors receive a consistent explanation modeled on the company's strongest sales narrative.
Common mistakes
Adding chat without a job
A chatbot that merely restates page copy creates another interface without reducing visitor effort.
Scaling video before testing
AI lowers production cost, but teams should still establish whether video improves comprehension or conversion before producing it broadly.
Optimizing only for current models
Designing around today's limitations can create experiences that are quickly overtaken as model capabilities improve.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for established marketing teams that want practical AI experiments tied to customer experience and conversion.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for teams lacking clear positioning, reliable product information, or ownership of the website experience.
From the transcript
“if you have not integrated AI chat in a meaningful way that is the number one that's job number one”
“the number two thing that I would do is I would start to figure out if I can play with some of these video tools”
“I would do edits of all of your product marketing product detail pages with AI as an editor and playing the role of your customer…”
From the episode
Do You Even NEED A Website?