While past innovations like the internet and smartphones rapidly changed how we connect, AI’s adoption curve is even steeper, almost vertical in fact. This shift is already disrupting long-standing models of digital communication and challenging organisations to rethink how their websites operate in an AI-driven world.
Traditionally, stakeholder engagement relied on attracting audiences to owned channels through SEO, social media, and direct traffic. But AI is now acting as a powerful intermediary, often providing answers from corporate websites without users ever visiting them. The corporate website is becoming a content engine not just for humans, but for AI systems that interpret, summarise, and redistribute information.
AI has caused a dramatic shift in search behaviour:
Google search impressions are up 49%, yet click-throughs are down 30%.
When AI-generated summaries appear, click-through rates drop to just 8%, compared to nearly double that when no AI summary is displayed.
Across the web, 60% of searches are now clickless.
AI bot scraping activity has increased over 1000%.
There are 400× more AI scrapes than AI referrals, indicating that users are consuming information directly within AI platforms.
These trends show a seismic shift: AI is consuming and summarising your website content for audiences who may never visit your site directly.
This makes your website not just a communications platform - but a structured knowledge source for AI systems like Google, ChatGPT, Atlas, and Perplexity.
The three key layers of AI search are:
Model Lookup
AI first checks its existing training data. If the information is outdated or time-sensitive, it moves to live web retrieval.
Relevancy & Structure Analysis
The AI evaluates content based on readability, accessibility, structure, and semantics. Well-structured HTML is significantly favoured over PDFs or image-based content.
Corroboration
AI systems cross-reference third-party sources like Wikipedia, Reddit, news sites, and social media signals to validate credibility.
Because of these layers, properly tagged, well-structured web content is now essential for visibility.
Organisations should adapt their content strategy, to coincide with AI.
1. Rethink PDFs
Although still accessible to humans, PDFs are deprioritised by AI search engines. AI often struggles to extract or interpret content within them, giving significantly higher priority to:
HTML pages
Structured markup
Machine-readable formats
Key corporate information - business models, strategies, governance, and performance data, should be represented in HTML where possible.
2. Treat Images, Infographics, and Videos with Care
AI cannot interpret images unless textual equivalents are embedded.
Organisations should consider:
HTML versions of diagrams
Descriptive tags and schema
Supplementary text summarising visual content
3. Optimise for AI, Not Just SEO
Several practical optimisations include:
Use structured data and schema markup (e.g., for leadership teams, financial data, product info).
Add summary boxes to key pages to provide AI-friendly context.
Include date stamps for figures and performance data.
Maintain consistency across channels - AI rewards alignment between website and social platforms.
4. Continuously Analyse AI Discoverability
Unlike traditional SEO (where changes take months to show results), AI search engines often reflect updates within 2–3 days. This allows organisations to iteratively optimise content in near real-time.
Beyond search, corporate websites themselves are evolving.
Personalised browsing experiences
Multi-format content delivery (video, audio, text, short-form explainers)
Real-time content adaptation
User journeys tailored to individual interests and behaviours
Digital communications teams must design not only for human visitors, but also for machine consumption - ensuring content is rich, structured, credible, and consistent.
AI can support content workflows, from rapid first drafts to data summaries and narrative enrichment. AI should enhance, not replace, expert human judgment, especially in corporate reporting, ESG disclosure, and stakeholder communications.
Crucially, the sheer volume of AI-driven content scrapes now occurring on corporate websites has increased exponentially. In one example, a site recorded over 101,000 monthly requests from ChatGPT alone.
This is giving rise to a new concept our clients are starting to track: “AI Day.”
This is the moment when a corporate website receives more daily AI bot scrapes than human visitors. Several organisations have already passed that threshold - a clear signal that AI search engines are consuming and redistributing corporate content at unprecedented scale.
For digital and corporate communications teams, this represents both an opportunity and a responsibility. Your website is no longer simply a destination; it has become a content supply hub for distributed AI answers worldwide. Visibility, accuracy, and authority matter more than ever.
Beyond search, AI is reshaping how audiences experience corporate websites.
There has been a significant behavioural shift:
30% of interactions are moving toward screenless experiences (Gartner)
Over 1 billion voice searches occur every day
Rather than navigating menus, audiences are increasingly asking questions conversationally, and expecting instant, accurate responses.
Many organisations are already adopting on-site AI chat capabilities. Examples showcased included:
Eni, with an AI assistant enabling visitors to ask natural-language questions
Zigup, offering an investor-relations–focused AI chat tool
McKinsey, which allows users to query its library of insights conversationally
To support this shift, Black Sun has developed AIVIA, a natural-language-powered virtual assistant. AIVIA allows visitors to speak or type questions directly into the website and immediately receive answers based solely on verified, published on-site content - maintaining accuracy, trust, and governance.
This not only speeds up access to information but also cuts down on the traditional, sometimes frustrating, click-by-click navigation model.
Another emerging trend is the integration of text-to-speech for corporate content. Organisations such as Santander and Johnson & Johnson now offer audio versions of key pages, enabling users to listen on the go.
This shift reflects a broader behavioural pattern:
Audiences increasingly prefer hands-free, mobile-friendly formats - consuming corporate updates like podcasts rather than long reads.
As this becomes more commonplace, corporate sites will need to plan content for both readers and listeners.
AI is not replacing creativity, but it is dramatically speeding up production and offering new ways to tell stories.
Static Images → Ambient Video
The creative team shared several examples where static images were converted into subtle, atmospheric videos using tools like Adobe Firefly. This approach lets brands:
Enhance hero banners
Add motion to otherwise flat pages
Refresh content without reshoots or complex animation work
AI tools can also turn corporate announcements, data points, or narrative content into visually polished social media posts in minutes - saving teams hours compared with traditional design workflows.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing developments is AI-driven content repurposing:
Upload a document → choose voice and tone → receive a podcast-ready audio version.
This gives organisations a simple way to present long-form written content in a more human, conversational format. Tone, voice, script edits, and brand preferences can all be customised.
This approach works particularly well for:
Annual report highlights
CEO messages
Sustainability updates
Thought-leadership summaries
Again, governance and appropriateness need to be considered - but the potential is significant.
AI search is fundamentally changing discoverability. Organisations need to intentionally structure, plan, and publish content so AI systems can correctly represent them.
AI is reshaping digital experiences. Conversational interfaces, voice interactions, and alternative formats like text to speech are becoming mainstream.
AI can enrich and enhance content - but human oversight is essential. Authenticity, accuracy, and brand integrity must remain at the centre.
For organisations wanting to understand their current position, the team offers:
AI Performance Analyser - including prompt visibility, content optimisation review, and technical assessment
Peergroup benchmarking
AIVIA, the natural language website assistant
If you're looking to strengthen your AI readiness and visibility, or would like a fully copy of the webinar recording, the team is ready to help. Please get in touch with Abbie Dixon, Relationship Marketing Executive, adixon@blacksun-global.com.
About Black Sun
Black Sun Global is a stakeholder advisory and engagement agency that's been driving transformation and positive change for ambitious brands for more than 20 years. With deep expertise in disclosure and reporting, ESG, sustainability, and digital engagement, we reshape how organisations connect with customers, investors, employees, and the wider world.
We are trusted partners to some of the most influential global organisations, sparking innovation and sustainable performance through our strategic insights, partnerships, and proprietary technologies.
As founders of the Positive Change Group, we are on a mission to create a new kind of stakeholder relations partner. Our world-class specialists work closely with executive leadership teams to protect reputations, inspire trust, and promote responsible business practices - building resilience and long-term value in a rapidly changing world.
For more information, please visit: www.blacksun-global.com
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