undefined | Better HN

0 pointsMordisquitos2mo ago0 comments

Businesses are generally in the business of serving human customers, not AI agents. Furthermore, if AI agents are so smart, surely they can figure it out for themselves.

0 comments

8 comments · 2 top-level

burntpineapple2mo ago· 4 in thread

gotta be a bit naive to think this way, no? "if x is so smart, why can't it just do y automatically?"

MordisquitosOP2mo ago

As a user, why would I trust an AI agent that cannot consistently use non-AI-tailored websites? If it cannot even do that, who knows what other failure modes it may hit me with.

ac292mo ago

I agree, but do the potential customers of my business?

We need to meet the customer where they are and that means making our site more accessible to search engines, mobile devices, LLMs, or whatever comes next.

PenguinCoder2mo ago

Isn't that the promise of AI??

themafia2mo ago

"It says x on the side of the tin. Why would you expect to find x when you open it?"

CPLX2mo ago· 2 in thread

Not really, business websites are generally in the business or serving user-agents like browsers that then convey the information to users.

If I tell Claude to go search the web and find me a bunch of links to the websites of restaurants in my neighborhood because I want to try something new do you think the restaurant wants to be on that list?

MordisquitosOP2mo ago

I would say that the restaurant would be wasting its time and resources by catering their website to hypothetical customers who are choosing to use inferior and overly engineered methods to find information about their physical surroundings out of technological fetishism. But that's just me.

CPLX2mo ago

Yes I think it's just you.

These AI tools are taking over as the main search/discovery vector for websites. Engaging with it is just basic SEO. This isn't really that complicated.

For content or media sites it's a different story. But most websites direct people to commercial transactions, and that's the group I'm referring to.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse