New research shows AI is reshaping how people discover brands, but it hasn’t replaced the website’s role as the final check before a purchase.
Most consumers now skip company websites and rely on AI for early web research, but they don’t fully trust AI results and still turn to websites when it’s time to decide, according to a new report from Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting provider.
That lack of trust raises the stakes for company websites, where consumers go to verify information and decide whether to buy. Slow pages and broken experiences can make a company feel less credible.
AI has already become the default starting point for many consumers. About 59.2% use AI tools often or occasionally for research, and 53.8% sometimes or often skip websites entirely. The trend appears likely to continue: 61.2% of consumers believe AI will eventually replace traditional websites as the primary way people discover products.
But consumers don’t fully trust AI. Fifty-eight percent say they trust content less when they believe it was AI-generated, and 52.1% say they trust traditional search more than AI. Only 18.8% say they trust AI product recommendations without doing additional research on their own.
That skepticism extends to a broader authenticity problem. As AI-generated content and fake reviews become more common, consumers are growing warier of what they see online — and brands need credible, human digital experiences to stand out.
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“Our clients tell us that people don’t take AI-generated content or reviews at face value anymore,” said Cody Landefeld, co-founder and partner at Mode Effect. “When someone lands on a website after getting a recommendation from AI, they’re already asking themselves whether they can trust what they’re looking at.”
The scrutiny falls hardest on infrastructure. Visitors referred from AI arrive already skeptical, so a site’s speed, uptime and security can either validate or ease that doubt. That traffic is high-stakes, too, since many of those visitors want to confirm a product before buying.
“AI has changed how people discover a brand, but buying still remains largely the same,” said Jeremy Fremont, director of business development at Multidots. “Consumers still make that call once they’re on the website, after they’ve had a chance to check things out for themselves.”
By the numbers:
- 90.7% say they are concerned about AI-generated misinformation
- 59% have stopped engaging with content they suspected was AI-generated
- 70.9% have suspected a product review was fake or AI-generated
- 44.7% always or most of the time visit a company’s website after receiving an AI recommendation
- 61.1% associate website quality with the quality of a company’s products or services
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“People are using AI to narrow their options, then coming to websites to make sure the recommendation checks out,” said Matt Reid, chief marketing officer at Kinsta. “Websites aren’t becoming less important because of AI. If anything, they’ve become the crucial last line of defense against bad information.”
