The first question we’re asked
Upon meeting someone, we’re often asked, “Is AI taking over your business?”
AI is definitely affecting our business, but it’s not taking it over. Some parts of this work still require strategy, judgment, empathy, and a human understanding of the people we’re trying to reach. But when used well, AI can be a powerful, time-saving strategic partner.
Organizations often come to us when their website has become difficult to navigate after years of accumulating content, shifting priorities, and evolving strategies. Visitors struggle to find relevant, up-to-date information, and the organization isn’t always sure what should stay, what should go, or how it should all fit together.
Simply redesigning a website won’t make it easier to use. The goal isn’t to make the same content prettier. It’s to make it easier for people to accomplish what they came to do.
This is where the human-AI partnership can shine.
Start with your audiences
AI’s part
Ask your AI tool to review your current website and identify the primary audiences it appears to serve, along with the goals or tasks the site seems to support for each.
Your part
Take that list and ask these questions for each audience identified:
- Do we still want to attract this audience to our website?
- Why do we want them to visit the site?
- What are the top three tasks they will want to complete?
- What information will influence their decisions?
If an audience is no longer a priority, move on.
Then take another look at the list. Are any important user types missing? If so, add them and answer the same questions for those audiences, too.
AI can help identify patterns in what already exists. Your team determines who the website actually needs to serve moving forward.
Audit everything
AI’s part
Years of accumulated pages can make a website audit feel overwhelming. This is one place where AI can save a significant amount of time.
If you’re using an AI tool that can crawl or access your website content, ask it to inventory your URLs and categorize pages by topic and audience. You can also use AI to analyze an exported sitemap or content inventory.
Ask it to flag potentially outdated information, identify duplicated or overlapping content, and organize the findings in a spreadsheet.
Your part
Once you have the spreadsheet, review the AI’s work carefully.
Using your knowledge of the organization’s priorities, stakeholder needs, internal dynamics, and strategic plan, confirm or correct what the AI identified.
AI may recognize two pages as duplicates without knowing why both exist. It may flag older content as outdated when there’s a reason it still matters. That context has to come from people who understand the organization.
In our experience, 30–70% of existing website content can often be archived, merged, or removed.
Organize what matters
Once you know who your audiences are and which content deserves to stay, it’s time to organize it.
AI’s part
Ask your AI tool to propose a new site structure based on your audiences’ goals rather than your organization’s internal departments.
It can group related content, suggest navigation labels, and create a draft sitemap that reduces duplication and makes information easier to find.
Ask for several approaches rather than accepting the first one it generates. AI is often good at producing alternatives you may not have considered.
Your part
This is where experience matters.
Your navigation needs to reflect how your organization works, what your audiences expect, and what your business goals are.
AI doesn’t know that your annual conference is your biggest membership driver, that two departments have competing priorities, or that a seemingly small program is central to your strategic plan.
Review the proposed structure with stakeholders, test it against your audience goals, and simplify wherever possible.
Improve the content
With the right pages in the right places, you can start improving the content itself.
AI’s part
AI is excellent at tackling repetitive editing tasks. It can:
- Rewrite content for clarity
- Shorten long pages
- Remove jargon
- Suggest headings and subheadings
- Check for consistency in tone and terminology
- Generate meta descriptions and image alt text
- Identify content gaps
Instead of staring at a blank page, you’re reviewing a first draft.
Your part
Don’t publish AI-generated copy without reviewing it.
Make sure the content reflects your organization’s voice, expertise, and values. Verify facts, replace generic language with specific examples, and ensure every page helps visitors accomplish a task. Confirm that AI didn’t omit important information or oversimplify something that needs more context.
Good content isn’t just well written. It’s useful.
Test before you launch
A big mistake organizations make is assuming that a new website is automatically easier to use.
AI’s part
Give AI your key audience goals and user journeys and ask it to identify potential points of friction or confusion.
It can simulate common questions, evaluate page readability, review calls to action, and help you spot areas that may need more clarity.
Your part
Nothing replaces watching real people use your website.
Conduct usability testing with representatives from your primary audiences. Observe where they hesitate, where they get lost, and where they succeed.
Those insights are almost always more valuable than opinions in a conference room.
AI is a partner, not a replacement
AI has changed how we approach website redesigns, and that’s a good thing.
It can help us analyze large amounts of content, develop alternatives, create first drafts, and eliminate hours of repetitive work.
What it can’t replace is the strategy, empathy, institutional knowledge, and judgment that determine whether a website actually works for the people using it.
The best website refreshes combine both: AI for speed and scale, humans for context and decisions.
Let AI do more of the heavy lifting so your team can spend more time making the thoughtful decisions that create a website people can actually use.