Will AI replace digital agencies or just expose the bad ones?
There’s a lot of talk about the future of agencies at the moment.
With the help of AI, you can generate a website in minutes. You can write copy, create images, build pages, and even define full brands without speaking to a single person.
On the surface, it looks like a big shift, and it is, but not in the way people think.
AI isn’t replacing good agencies; it’s exposing the ones that never delivered value in the first place.
For years, parts of the industry have been built on things that are easy to replicate: nice design and generic messaging. If the main output is something that can be templated, AI will get very close to it, very quickly.
That’s where the pressure is.
If a business could get something similar by typing a few prompts into a tool, the question becomes simple: what were they paying for before?
That’s an uncomfortable, but it’s a fair question.
Where weaker agencies get exposed
The agencies that will struggle over the next few years won’t be the ones doing thoughtful, outcome-led work; it will be the ones relying on surface-level delivery.
The ones that jump straight into design without understanding what the site needs to do, and the ones that treat websites like a visual project instead of a commercial one.
AI is very good at producing something that looks finished, but it’s not very good at deciding what should exist in the first place.
The problem most websites still have
Most businesses don’t have a website problem because they lack pages.
They have a problem because the site doesn’t help visitors move forward or make a decision. It doesn’t create enough of the right enquiries, it doesn’t build trust quickly enough, and it doesn’t support the sales process in a meaningful way.
None of that is solved by generating more content or spinning up a faster build; it comes down to strategy and understanding user behaviour.
Who are we trying to attract? What do they need to see to trust us? Where do they get stuck? What makes them take action?
Those questions sit outside of any tool.
AI can’t take responsibility for the outcome.
Why does this raise the bar, not lower it?
If anything, AI raises the bar on what a good agency should be doing.
It removes the friction around production, which means the value shifts further upstream, less about building things, more about deciding what’s worth building in the first place.
You can already see it in how businesses are starting to think.
There’s less interest in how something is built and more focus on what it delivers. Less patience for long timelines that don’t lead to measurable change.
More scrutiny around whether the work has made any difference to lead quality, conversion, or revenue.
That shift has been happening for a while; AI has just sped it up.
What still separates a good website
A site that looks good but performs poorly used to get a bit of leeway.
Now it’s easy to generate something that looks decent, so the visual side becomes less of a differentiator.
What stands out is what happens after someone lands on the site.
Is it clear what the business does and who it’s for? Does the structure guide people towards the right next step? Does it answer the questions that matter?
Those fundamentals haven’t changed; if anything, they matter more.
Speed doesn’t replace thinking
There’s no point pretending AI doesn’t change how the work gets done.
Production becomes faster, iteration becomes easier, and certain parts of the process that used to take days can now take hours.
That’s a good thing if it’s used properly.
But speed on its own doesn’t create value.
You can move quickly in the wrong direction.
We’ve seen businesses invest heavily into websites that look impressive but don’t contribute much commercially; that doesn’t change because the build was faster or cheaper.
If the thinking isn’t there, the result doesn’t improve.
In some cases, it gets worse.
Where good agencies still matter
That’s where a good agency still earns its place; not by controlling the tools, but by guiding the decisions.
Knowing when to simplify instead of add, what to prioritise and what to ignore and being able to challenge assumptions and bring things back to what drives results.
Most businesses don’t want to manage a website day to day. They want someone who can look at the bigger picture, make the right calls, and keep things moving in the right direction.
AI doesn’t replace that.
This isn’t about replacement
The same applies after the site goes live.
A website isn’t a finished product. It should evolve. It should respond to how people use it, where they drop off, what’s working and what isn’t.
That ongoing improvement is where a lot of the value sits.
You don’t get that from a one-off build, whether it was created by a person or a tool.
You get it from staying involved and taking responsibility for performance over time.
That’s the big difference between delivering a project and acting as a partner.
How we approach it
At purpleplanet, we don’t treat AI as something separate. It’s part of a wider shift in how people interact with information, but the core principles stay the same.
We focus on structure first: how the website is organised, how information flows, and how it supports both users and search.
From there, we build something flexible enough to evolve.
That means it can adapt to changes in discovery without needing to be rebuilt every time something new comes along.
Because the goal isn’t to chase every shift.
It’s to build something that continues to work as those shifts happen.
If you’re looking at your website and wondering how it fits into all of this, we’re happy to take a look.
