Web Surfing in the Artificial Intelligence Era

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bloomberg Businessweek

Episode: Web Surfing in the Artificial Intelligence Era
Date: November 17, 2025
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec
Guest: Linda Tong, CEO of Webflow

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into how artificial intelligence—particularly large language models (LLMs)—is fundamentally changing the way websites are designed, discovered, and engaged with. The conversation with Linda Tong, CEO of Webflow, centers on "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO), a shift in focus from traditional search engine optimization (SEO) as web traffic increasingly comes from AI-driven agents rather than classic search engines. Tong provides deep insights into how companies should adapt to remain relevant and effective in the AI era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Two Audiences for Websites in the AI Era

[02:22] Linda Tong:

• Websites must now serve two distinct audiences: humans and AI systems.
• "You now have to serve two audiences. You now have to build the traditional website that a human experiences. And you have to build a website now that is AI readable and can be indexable for these new LLMs that are really driving the future of service."

2. From SEO to AEO: A Paradigm Shift

[02:45] Host 2 & Linda Tong:

• Is this the new SEO?
  Linda Tong: "It is. And a lot of folks are now calling it AEO. So, Answer Engine Optimization."
  [02:47]
• Classic SEO often involved keyword stuffing and superficial tactics to rank higher, which led to lower content quality.
• AEO, by contrast, is about authoritative, richly structured content that LLMs can ingest and reference as answers.

[03:32] Linda Tong:

• "What's different now with AEO is actually it's founded on authority and the richness of your content...instead it's saying the content on your site, the structure of your site has to be designed to be authoritative and you have to have detailed information that ultimately will get indexed and researched and surfaced back into an answer."

3. Real-Time Trends and Shifts in Web Traffic

[04:45] Linda Tong:

• Webflow has seen the proportion of "top of funnel" traffic from LLMs jump from 15–25% to as high as 50%.
• This represents over 125% growth in just the first six months.
• The nature of lead generation is changing—users arrive with greater context and intent thanks to detailed AI-processed answers.

Notable Quote [05:15]:

• "With AEO, it's about building context. When a user comes in through this answer engine, they're coming in with higher intent and higher willingness to ultimately engage and interact and convert on your site."

4. Motivation and User Behavior in the Age of AEO

[06:11] Linda Tong:

• Motivation remains: companies still want website visits, but now the visits are more transactional and high-context.
• "They might go straight to your buy button or straight to your subscribe button. So it's a much more transactional, high-context interaction."

5. Lost Discovery and Control—A Double-Edged Sword

[06:47] Host 1 & Linda Tong:

• User control and the element of "discovery" are diminished as AI serves up curated answers directly.
• Both brands and users lose some agency in how content is found and presented.
• [07:24] Linda Tong: "It's actually limiting for both the user and for the brand that is trying to interact with the user. ... The quality of your prompt directly impacts the quality of the response you get. And so there is a bit of a learning process."

6. The Future of Ads and Monetization in AEO

[07:58] Host 1 & [08:03] Linda Tong:

• Anticipation that ads will emerge in answer engine interfaces, mirroring the lucrative nature of SEO.
• Linda Tong: "I suspect we will start to see ads pop up. This is, you know, a massive...think of SEO as a trillion dollar industry. I can't imagine a world where AEO does not take a percentage of that."

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Linda Tong [02:22]:
  "You now have to serve two audiences. You now have to build the traditional website that a human experiences. And you have to build a website now that is AI readable and can be indexable for these new LLMs."

• Linda Tong [03:32]:
  "It's sort of rejecting the slop, all the sort of marketing, like very like fluffy keywords. And instead it's saying the content on your site, the structure of your site has to be designed to be authoritative..."

• Linda Tong [05:15]:
  "With AEO, it's about building context. When a user comes in through this answer engine, they're coming in with higher intent and higher willingness to ultimately engage and interact and convert on your site."

• Linda Tong [07:24]:
  "It's actually limiting for both the user and for the brand... The quality of your prompt directly impacts the quality of the response that you get."

• Linda Tong [08:03]:
  "I suspect we will start to see ads pop up... I can't imagine a world where AEO does not take a percentage of [the SEO industry]."

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Timeline and Timestamps of Key Segments

• [01:36] – Question: How should websites adapt in the AI era?
• [02:22] – Linda Tong: The need to serve both humans and AI
• [02:45] – Emergence of "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO)
• [03:32] – How AEO differs from (and improves upon) SEO
• [04:45] – Real-world trend: traffic from LLMs is rapidly rising
• [06:11] – Why companies still want website visits in AEO—but with new types of user journeys
• [06:47] – The downside: Loss of discovery, both users and companies have less control
• [07:58] – Will AEO be monetized via ads?
• [08:03] – Linda Tong: AEO’s future role in online advertising

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Tone & Language

The episode maintains a conversational yet insightful tone, with technical depth but clear language for business leaders and digital professionals. Linda Tong is articulate, enthusiastic, and direct, making technical shifts understandable.

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Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive look at the ongoing transformation of the web in the age of artificial intelligence. The actionable insight: to thrive, websites and brands must move beyond old SEO tactics, prioritize authoritative and structured content, and prepare for new discovery and monetization norms driven by AI and answer engines. The landscape is evolving fast—and both the promise and the challenges are significant for businesses aiming to stay ahead.

Transcript

[Host 1]

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[Host 1]

Certain Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.

[Host 2]

You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with.

[Narrator]

Carol Massar and Tim Stanovec on Bloomberg Radio.

[Host 2]

The question a lot of people have now is okay, how do websites need to change in the era of AI so that they get attention of the LLMs that are increasingly being trained on them and also sending traffic to them?

[Host 1]

That's where webflow comes in. I'm kind of looking forward to this question, this interview and understanding. This company calls itself a quote AI native website experience platform. Most recently it raised a $120 million Series C round from investors including Y Combinator, Excel and Capital G. Customers include Dropbox, Big Spotify, Docusign and more.

[Host 2]

Tim we're joined by Linda Tong, CEO of webflow. She joins us from Las Vegas. Linda, good to have you with us on the program. You know, Carol mentioned some of the customers Dropbox, Spotify, Docusign and more. In the era of AI, how does a website need to be different?

[Linda Tong]

Oh my goodness. One, thank you for having me here. I'm so excited to chat with you about this. And two, so talking about how does a website need to be different in the era of AI? You now have to serve two audiences. You now have to build the traditional website that a human experiences. And you have to build a website now that is AI readable and can be indexable for these new LLMs that are really driving the future of service.

[Host 2]

Is this the new SEO?

[Linda Tong]

It is. And a lot of folks are now calling it aeo. So Answer Engine Optimization.

[Host 2]

Well, I wouldn't say SEO was great for, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't necessarily all good all the time. There was a lot of garbage. Can I say that garbage out there?

[Host 1]

Search engine optimization.

[Host 2]

Yeah, sorry. Search engine optimization. Especially in the early. But in like the early aughts, like the, you know, 2010, 11, 12, these websites that were just built for, you know, to. I worked, I worked in this a little bit early on, full disclosure. Okay, I can tell. And I was like, what are we doing?

[Host 1]

What are we doing?

[Host 2]

What are we doing? How is it good? How do you make sure that we're not creating slop, that companies aren't creating slop, that we're actually serving the end user?

[Linda Tong]

Absolutely. It's, you know, I think the slop that you're talking about is with, you know, early days of SEO, it was just shoving keywords in there and trying to like, change headers so that you would index well and get to the top of a search result. What's different now with AEO is actually it's founded on authority and the richness of your content. So it's actually, it's sort of rejecting the slop, all the sort of marketing, like very like fluffy keywords. And instead it's saying the content on your site, the structure of your site has to be designed to be authoritative and you have to have detailed information that ultimately will get indexed and researched and surfaced back into an answer. If you go, you know, search, you know, ask a question to any of these engines. And so I actually think you're going to see this evolution in how you design a site to be more authoritative and to provide meaningful value to users in order to rank or surface as a result through these different LLMs.

[Host 2]

Hmm.

[Host 1]

So how do you see this all kind of rolling out, these changes as we increasingly are asking LLMs or chatbots to figure out stuff for us. How does this roll out?

[Linda Tong]

Well, we're already seeing a lot of it. One of the biggest changes that we've seen at Webflow is in just the first six months of this year, I guess now for 11 months. But as this year has been evolving, we've seen a skyrocketing of the amount of traffic that's coming in in terms of Top of funnel from these LLMs. So we think of it as traffic that's coming from these agents versus traditional search engine or like organic traffic. And that's gone anywhere from 15 to 25% of someone's top of funnel to now as much as like 50% of your funnel is coming from these, these engines. And what this represents in terms of growth is over 125% growth in just the first six months of this year. The change is well underway. What is really interesting about the patterns are it's changing the funnel itself. With SEO, it was about discovery, it was about getting someone to click through and get to your website. With aeo, it's about building context. When a user comes in through this answer engine, they're coming in with higher intent and higher willingness to ultimately engage and interact and convert on your site.

[Host 2]

Incentive in SEO was to get people to go to your website. You get that traffic. If you're a news site, you know, then you can sell that against ads. What's the, what is the motivation? What is the, what is, what is the thing that makes it so with answer engine optimization? With aeo, companies want their websites to be featured.

[Linda Tong]

What's the motivation ultimately still to come into your website, but ultimately it's to convert. Oftentimes you want to get someone to your website to learn about you and then sign up or, you know, enter their email or, or buy something. And now with aeo, they might come in and instead of having to spend time on your site to figure out who you are and what you do, they're coming in with so much context that they got from this answer engine that they might go straight to your buy button or straight to your subscribe button. So it's a much more transactional, high context interaction. And you're still going through the website, but it just, it shrinks your funnel the way it used to be.

[Host 1]

Linda, though, you know, one thing I'm curious though, with aeo, I mean, does a user lose some control like as you said with SEO, like we had some control about kind of filtering through where did we want to go, right? That kind of feeling of discovery and figuring it out and then are we losing some control when AI is doing that for us and there is something on our part that we've got to kind of teach it what we want then I also still wonder if that is still limiting then ultimately in that search.

[Linda Tong]

Absolutely. It's actually limiting for both the user and for the brand that is trying to interact with the user. As a user, how well, you ask an answer engine, whatever question or query you have, the quality of your prompt directly impacts the quality of the response that you get. And so there is a bit of a learning process that I'm seeing going on in terms of how people search or even have queries or ask questions in this new world that will directly impact, you know, how they get the results that they're looking for. Linda, are we, are we going to.

[Host 1]

Ultimately see ads in this world? And just got about 30, 25 seconds.

[Linda Tong]

I suspect we will. I suspect we will start to see ads pop up. This is, you know, a massive think of SEO as a trillion dollar industry. I can't imagine a world where AEO does not take a percentage of that.

[Host 1]

Yeah, totally. Hey, good Stu. Look forward to already our next conversation. Let us know how things are going. Linda Tong, she's Chief Executive officer of webflow, joining us from San Francisco.

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