I have been having these thoughts about hackthedegree since October due to the increased use of AI to study by my students. Though not directly related to my worries, this video by Wes McDowell further emphasises how AI is changing the game.

Your Website Won’t Matter in 2027. Prepare Now.

Some research says that 43% of buyers are using an AI assistant to research something before they buy.

1 in 4 say AI is their main source for recommendations. Ahead of going to a company’s website.

53% of AI users say that they mainly use it compare options and narrow them down. But 85% of people who use AI still double what it told them somewhere else.

Where is the AI getting its answers from?

• YouTube - more than anywhere else.
• Reddit used to be the one it cited the most.

YouTube is now the single most cited source in Google’s AI answers. Almost 30% of Google’s AI answers have a YouTube video in them.

The AI can tell everything you say in that video. AI can get:

• what you specialise in
• what area you work in By the end of the day, people work with whoever feels safest and most familiar. A website is never going to do that, the way a video can.

Marcus Sheridan (author of They Ask, You Answer) prediced that your YouTube channel will be more important than your website.

similarweb tracked 1.3 billion clicks out of AI chatbots in a single month and the number one place they went to next was YouTube. Higher than Facebook, Reddit and Wikipedia compared!

Making a website and copy is too easy now because of AI

When everyone’s site is great then what’s the differentiator?

The one thing AI can’t fake is you.

Your website is down being to the last part in the sales process, the first part is your YouTube channel. For this to work you need 2 kinds of videos:

• The logistical questions: answer what people are already asking about hiring somebody like you.
  • Questions you tend to get on sales calls and email inbox.
  • Questions they ask before they decide who they want to go with.
  • Answer one question per video.
  • Biggest question you want to answer: pricing.
  • Comparison video: compare to other options/competitors.
  • Process video: what to to expect when working with you, or your workflow/process.
  • Timeline video: how long before I can see results.
  • How to choose video: questions you should ask before hiring person/company X.
  • Make sure these videos are for people first not machines.
• Claim jumpers: call out what you specialise in and who you do your best work for.
  • Case studies: stories of exact right client. Who they were, what you did together and what changed for them.
  • Topic choices: what you choose to make videos about tells people who you serve.
  • Mentioning the people you work with: I was working with person X and we worked on Y.

the specialist gets handed exactly the client they were built for

Just start

AI citation study says that an AI does not care about:

• View count
• Likes
• Size of channel You can being cited by AI very early.

Role of your website

• Somewhere to send people
• Where the deal acutally closes
  • Get on your calendar
  • Fill out your form
  • Grab your lead magnet
  • End up on your email list

Yoour website can be smaller now as YouTube would have given the visitor the confidence.

Source