“I used to take pride in answering every customer call. Now my AI handles most of them so I can focus on the work I love.”
– Probably Larry, from Larry’s Lawns
This Morning’s Rabbit Hole: UX, AI, and What’s Next
Some mornings hit differently. Today, mine started with a casual scroll and turned into a rabbit hole about where user experience or UX for applications is heading now that AI is baked into nearly everything. From shopping and learning to researching and building, AI is replacing a lot of the tedious clicking, searching, and filtering we used to do manually.
It’s happening fast. If you’re part of modern digital life, you’ve probably noticed that a good portion of your daily tech interactions now involve an AI model. It reminds me of how Google once changed everything. People set it as their homepage the moment they realized its power. That was the first big shift. This is the next one.
AI isn’t replacing the web. It’s just becoming the layer between us and it.
The Shift From Searching to Asking
We used to search the web ourselves. Now we just ask a model to do it for us. What used to take 20 minutes of scanning, filtering, and digging is now done in a single response.
This is a fundamental UX shift. We’re not changing how websites look. We’re changing how people use them. Instead of navigating through dozens of pages, users are engaging with intelligent assistants that summarize, recommend, and act.
The web hasn’t gone away. It just isn’t the front door anymore.
No, Websites Aren’t Dead
Some people ask, “If AI can handle everything, do we still need websites?”
The answer is yes, absolutely. But they’re evolving.
Static websites may fade. But functional, dynamic, AI-integrated sites are just getting started. Websites are no longer just digital brochures. They’re becoming tools that think, act, and serve.
Let me show you what I mean through a totally realistic and only slightly made-up example…
Case Study: Larry’s Lawns and the AI That Changed Everything
Larry owns a successful landscaping business. His WordPress site helped him pick up new customers over the years. He loved helping clients, answering phone calls, and being hands-on.
But as Larry’s business grew, so did the number of calls. Same questions, day after day. He found himself spending more time explaining how to fix yellow patches of grass than actually mowing lawns.
Hiring someone didn’t feel right. It was hard to train someone to match Larry’s knowledge and voice. So he tried something new.
Larry trained a language model using his own content, FAQs, and experience. Within days, he had a virtual assistant running on his website. It could:
- Answer common customer questions
- Help book appointments
- Offer seasonal lawn care reminders
- Maintain Larry’s personal tone and brand
He launched it. Some customers missed the personal touch, but most appreciated the instant help. And they trusted that Larry was still behind the scenes.
In just a few weeks, Larry cut his phone time dramatically, booked more jobs, and finally had breathing room. With that free time, he bought a lottery ticket and won. Larry sold the business to a tech startup and moved to Fiji.
That’s the kind of shift we’re talking about.
Table 1: Traditional vs. AI-Augmented Customer Support
Feature | Traditional Support | AI-Powered Assistant |
---|---|---|
Hours of Operation | Business Hours | 24/7 Availability |
Number of Conversations | One at a Time | Unlimited, Simultaneous |
Brand Consistency | Varies by rep | Always On-Brand |
Speed of Response | Minutes to Hours | Instant |
Cost to Scale | High (More Staff) | Low (One-Time Setup) |
Table 1: Comparing traditional customer support with a GenAI-powered assistant.
Websites Are Becoming Workflows
What changed for Larry is what’s about to change for millions of small businesses.
A website used to be a storefront. Now it’s a workflow. It’s where customers do things. They don’t want to browse through eight service pages and call you. They want instant help, answers, and solutions.
Larry’s Lawns went from an old-school web presence to a fully automated customer service engine. Sandra can now activate her LarryBot while she’s on the tennis court and come home to perfectly trimmed hedges.
That isn’t a future scenario. That’s already happening.
What AI Means for UX
The UX shift isn’t just about convenience. It’s about attention.
People don’t want to spend time on screens doing grunt work. They want results. That means removing friction, reducing steps, and giving users exactly what they need when they need it.
This doesn’t make learning or working too easy. It just removes the bottlenecks. That energy gets redirected to higher-value tasks.
We’re not replacing human input. We’re refining how we apply it.
Final Thought
If Larry hadn’t had a website, he never would have launched his AI assistant. He would’ve kept grinding, answering calls, and missing opportunities.
The difference today is that websites are evolving. They’re not going anywhere. They’re becoming smarter, more helpful, and more personal.
And they’re giving people like Larry the time and tools to scale what matters.