AI is making it easier to skip websites entirely. Why dig through search results, cookie notices, pop-ups, and bloated pages when a chatbot can simply give you an answer? There is just one problem. Consumers apparently don’t trust AI enough to leave it at that.
New research from Kinsta finds that 59.2 percent of U.S. consumers use AI tools often or occasionally for research, while 53.8 percent sometimes or often skip websites during the process. Looking ahead, 61.2 percent believe AI will eventually replace websites as the primary way people discover products.
Those numbers sound like terrible news for the traditional web. Dig a little deeper, though, and things get interesting. After receiving an AI recommendation, 44.7 percent of respondents say they always or most of the time visit the company’s website. Another 25 percent do so occasionally.
Apparently, asking AI for an answer is one thing. Trusting that answer enough to spend money is another.
The skepticism isn’t exactly subtle. According to Kinsta’s research, 90.7 percent of respondents are concerned about AI-generated misinformation, and 58 percent trust content less when they think AI created it. Traditional search still has an advantage, with 52.1 percent saying they trust conventional search results more than AI-generated answers.
Only 18.8 percent say they always trust an AI product recommendation without doing additional research. So even as ChatGPT, Gemini, and other AI services become research tools, most consumers apparently aren’t ready to blindly accept whatever appears in the answer box.
Websites shouldn’t celebrate just yet, however. The survey also offers a pretty good explanation for why people are bypassing them. Among respondents who often choose AI instead, 52.2 percent say it is faster than searching multiple sites, and 45.2 percent like being able to ask follow-up questions. Meanwhile, 42 percent blame excessive ads or pop-ups, while 37.6 percent say traditional search results feel cluttered or driven by SEO.
Ouch. Publishers and website owners have spent years stuffing pages with advertising, newsletter prompts, cookie banners, affiliate links, and other distractions. Then AI showed up offering to cut through much of that mess and provide the answer directly. Consumers choosing the cleaner option shouldn’t surprise anyone.
The irony is that the website still matters once someone decides to check the answer. Kinsta found that 61.1 percent of consumers associate the quality of a company’s website with the quality of its products or services. A slow, broken, or lousy website can therefore undermine whatever positive introduction AI provided.
Trust is becoming messy elsewhere too. Some 70.9 percent of respondents say they have suspected a product review was fake or AI-generated, while 59 percent have stopped engaging with content they suspected was created by AI. Another 43.3 percent say knowing bots are active online makes them trust websites less.
The study was conducted by Propeller Insights and surveyed 1,008 U.S. consumers. Kinsta reports a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.
AI clearly poses a challenge to the traditional web, particularly when it comes to discovery. But these numbers don’t suggest websites are disappearing. Instead, their job may be changing.
AI can tell you what to consider buying. Apparently, a lot of people still want to check the actual website before reaching for their wallet.
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