Spreading rapidly through marketing departments, leadership off-sites, and any workplace that’s recently held a “Future of AI” lunch-and-learn:

“We don’t need a website anymore, ’cause AI will do everything.”

Yes.
Of course.
Just as microwaves eradicated cooking, Spotify killed live music, and Crocs killed sex appeal.

But here we are:
Still cooking.
Still listening.
Still making questionable footwear decisions.

The rumoured demise of the website has been greatly exaggerated. BrightEdge reckons 53% of all website visits still begin with search, which means people are still finding brands the old-fashioned way, by looking for them. Yes, user behaviour is evolving. Yes, the internet is shifting toward dynamic, AI friendly content engines quietly rewriting how information works.

But from this completely reasonable observation, we’ve somehow leapt to the idea that AI, a tool that routinely confuses dolphins with motorcycles, is now qualified to be your brand guardian, storyteller, and full-time communications director.

Fascinating logic.
Deeply flawed.

Out here in the real world, your website remains the one marketing channel you actually own. Your brand is increasingly squatting on other people’s platforms like a digital backpacker sleeping on the floor of a hostel they didn’t pay for.

Yes, AI can summarise you, explain you, attempt to articulate your “mission” (usually incorrectly), and hallucinate freely about your founding story, often inventing events so moving you’ll wish they were true.

The unglamorous truth is: AI can only guess what your brand is if you haven’t bothered to tell it.

And where do you tell it?
Hint: It’s not Instagram.
It’s not your annual “Our Culture Means So Much to Us” LinkedIn post.

It’s your website, that dusty digital tome of truth you haven’t updated, let’s face it, for a regrettably long time.

According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer, brand websites are the most-trusted source of information, ranking far above social media, advertising, influencers, and anything AI confidently blurts out.

HubSpot backs this up: 68% of buyers prefer learning about a business directly from its website, not from whatever your intern has managed to squeeze into a Reel.

AI search? Rented.
Marketplaces? Rented.
Social platforms? Definitely rented, and trusted by a heroic 21% of people according to Edelman. Not ideal for building credibility.

And that audience you’re “building”?
Think of it less like ownership and more like a timeshare you accidentally signed up for. Access is limited, unpredictable, and occasionally revoked.

Your website, however:
That’s the freehold estate.
The villa.
The land you actually own.

The one place you control the design, the experience, the story – without a platform tapping you on the shoulder to say, “Sorry, this content violates our extremely vague community guidelines.”

Don’t confuse activity with strategy.

‍As if posting twice a day somehow absolves poor design, an incoherent proposition, or a website that loads slower than a Windows Vista update.

Being “active” on social isn’t a brand strategy.
It’s a hobby.
Like pottery, but with more filters.

What you need is a clear, controlled environment where your brand can explain itself without interruption, distraction, or the risk of being sandwiched between an ad for artisanal dog food and a highly suspicious pop-up offering to “improve male performance” using ancient Himalayan chanting.

Counter-intuitively, and let’s really lean into contrarian logic, AI has made websites more important, not less.

Because when AI crawls the internet looking for meaning, authority, and reliable facts about your brand, it needs a primary, canonical source.

If your “primary source” is a press release from 2019, a Google review written by someone called BoatDad47, or your CFO’s attempt at blogging, then AI will simply make up the rest. And not in a flattering way.

Google’s own documentation for AI Overviews spells it out: AI relies primarily on high-quality website content and structured data when generating summaries. Not social captions. Not half-finished landing pages. And certainly not your CFO’s emotionally charged blog post from 2019.

Your website is the place where your brand tells the world (and the bots): Who you are.
What you sell.
Why you are, against all odds, trustworthy.

Miss that, and you’re essentially letting AI ghostwrite your autobiography.
Blindfolded.
On a hoverboard.