Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence and how it’s impacting digital marketing. “Are we showing up in AI?” is a common question during client calls. Businesses and organizations face a new challenge: making their existing websites ready for AI-driven search and content systems. Just as SEO helped websites rank on Google, AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are changing how people discover information online.
For businesses with long-standing websites, especially those live for 10+ years, the question is critical: should you redesign your existing site or build a new AI-first content hub?
What Exactly is AI-First in Regards to Websites and Web Design?
“AI-first” is a term that’s being thrown around a lot lately. From the standpoint of web design and development, it can mean a few things.
“AI first” can mean utilizing and prioritizing AI tools to design and build a website. For example, some popular platforms such as WordPress are promoting that you can build a website just by chatting. I tried it, and it was pretty basic. However, it could be useful for a non-programmer to quickly and cheaply launch a new site.
The second aspect of “AI-first” relates to content creation. This can be everything from creating website copy and blog posts to video scripts and product descriptions. But it doesn’t stop there. You can use AI to generate photo-realistic images and even logos. With a thoughtful prompt, you can get some very good copy and images for your website. But is AI-generated content better than content crafted by a trained and experienced human? In my opinion, no. But sometimes it comes down to time and money. During the past year, we’ve seen the use of AI-generated and AI-assisted content drastically increase.
The third, and most important, aspect of “AI-first” relates to leveraging new tools to help your content and brand name to show up in AI chats (similar to search results). For example, if you ask Google AI Mode or ChatGPT:
What are the best kids dentists in Fleming Island?
It’ll “think” for a few seconds, then list several pediatric dentists in Fleming Island, FL, including our client Growing Healthy Smiles.
How does your business get included in AI search results? Well, it depends on the AI platform, but generally your site had to be included in the AI training data. Most small sites weren’t included. Therefore, it needs to be optimized for AI search. Folks are calling this GEO (generative engine optimization) or AEO (answer engine optimization).
For example, when I asked ChatGPT if the pediatric dentists listed in its answer were part of its training data, it replied:
“When I gave you dentist recommendations, they came from real-time web search results, not from pre-training data.”
For small local businesses, GEO is similar to SEO. You need to have relevant content on your site, good reviews on Google / Yelp, and some brand mentions or awards on other sites (Best of lists).
This is pretty straightforward for small local sites, but what about large companies, hospitals, universities, and organizations that have thousands of pages?
The Challenge of Legacy Websites
Legacy websites from large organizations tend to be much larger and more complex than small biz sites. Updating legacy sites typically requires a few levels of client approval and a significant financial investment.
Older websites often come with technical debt. Over time, WordPress , Drupal, and custom CMS sites accumulate:
- Outdated themes and plugins
- Unsupported custom code
- Bloated or inconsistent content
- Weak internal linking structures
- Missing schema and structured data
- Inconsistent authorship or content ownership
- Pages no longer aligned with current business goals
These challenges make it difficult and pricey to fully optimize the site for modern content discovery. Legacy sites often resist improvements, making content workflows inefficient and prone to errors. So, how do we overcome this hurdle? There are a few options.
Option 1: Modernize the Existing Site
Redesigning your existing website is the most straightforward approach for brands that:
- Have strong domain authority
- Want to keep all content consolidated
- Require a unified user experience
Pros:
- Maintains SEO authority in a single domain
- Preserves user familiarity
Cons:
- Complex and time-consuming
- Risk of “breaking” existing SEO
- Difficult to integrate modern content strategies without heavy restructuring
- Typically requires a significant budget
Option 2: Build a Brand-New AI-First Site
Creating a new website or subdomain allows businesses to design an environment optimized for modern content and search.
Pros:
- Clean, modern structure built for structured content
- Fully integrated content clusters, schema, and internal linking
- Quick experimentation and iterative improvements with the latest and greatest AI tools
- No risk of disrupting legacy site content or being penalized by Google for aggressive AI optimization
Cons:
- New domain sites start without authority, requiring time and backlinks
- Requires clear branding and connection to the main site
- There’s always a cost associated with building something new, and no guarantee that it will generate a significant return
Best Use Cases:
- Knowledge centers for healthcare practices
- Educational resources for local businesses
- FAQ and guide libraries
- Blog-style subdomains for testing new content workflows
Option 3: Create a Subdomain for New Content
For businesses with established sites that don’t want to risk major changes, building a subdomain is often the sweet spot.
Examples:
- learn.motionbuzz.com
- guides.motionbuzz.com
- info.motionbuzzn.com
Pros:
- Connected to the main brand
- Supports experimentation with structured content
- Allows for easy expansion of content clusters
- Easy to roll a new WordPress site that’s independent of the existing main site
Cons:
- Subdomains don’t automatically inherit full SEO authority
- Requires thoughtful linking and integration with the main site
Are AI-First Sites the Future of Web Design?
This is a great question, and something I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. As the owner of a web design / digital marketing agency, are the bots coming for my livelihood? I strongly believe it’s best to continue to have people design for people, and not hand everything over to AI.
At this point, I see the “AI-first” approach to web design as something to strategically test and see what tools work best. The fact is, businesses need to quickly adapt and be where the eyeballs are. Competition is only increasing.
With that in mind, AI optimization has many things in common with traditional SEO. Pages must have:
- Clear structure and hierarchy
- Authoritative and accurate content
- Consistent use of terminology and JSON-LD schema
- Up-to-date, verifiable information
Legacy sites sometimes still fail in these areas, particularly if the last redesign was many years ago. Organizations who currently have older websites need to budget for updates.
Practical Recommendations for Businesses
- Build an optimized content hub: Consider a subdomain or new site for structured, evergreen content. Then optimize WordPress for AI.
- Use structured data: Apply JSON-LD schema markup for LocalBusiness, FAQs, articles, and services.
- Create modular content: Design content clusters with clear hierarchy and interlinking.
- Maintain legacy site integrity: Keep the original site for core pages like home, about, services, and lead funnels.
- Iterate and test: Monitor performance, experiment with content clusters, and adapt strategies based on analytics.
How to get noticed by AI
For businesses with long-standing websites, fully modernizing a legacy site is often expensive and restrictive. Building a new AI-first website or subdomain is typically the smarter approach, especially for content-heavy industries like healthcare, non-profits, and local services.
A modern, structured content hub allows businesses to leverage emerging AI tools. Ultimately, the goal is to build sites that are visible on Google and emerging AI search platforms without sounding over-optimized or generic.
About Motionbuzz
Motionbuzz helps businesses bridge the gap between traditional digital marketing and the AI-powered future. We design WordPress websites, create structured content strategies, and optimize content to be discoverable by both humans and intelligent search systems. We are the “humans in the loop” when it comes to leveraging the latest AI tools. Contact us to learn more.
About the author:
Thomas Gapinski is a digital marketing leader with over 25 years of industry experience. He is principal and creative director at Motionbuzz.
Thomas helps businesses grow by combining content strategy, SEO / SEM, and modern web design to create digital experiences that attract, convert, and build long-term trust. He is a proven expert in digital marketing and emerging AI technology. Thomas helps organizations show up where people search, whether that’s Google, ChatGPT, or the next generation of intelligent platforms.