Congrats! Your site converts. Just not for robots...

The other day, I asked ChatGPT’s new agent mode to log into my ESPN fantasy football account—just to see what it would do.

The fantasy football section of ESPN's website is a notoriously horrible experience, despite being the most trafficked part during football season.

Ten minutes later, it was still trying. The agent kept spinning, getting stuck, refreshing, apologizing, refreshing again. I started rooting for it like a kid watching a puppy figure out stairs.

This places more emphasis on simple UI / CRO, whereas in the past, we’ve often just assumed that if our customers want our products enough, they’ll figure it out.

It’s no longer about whether your website is “good enough” for people. It’s about whether it’s navigable by the machines those people will soon rely on to do the navigating for them.

ChatGPT traffic converts like garbage (for now)

New research from over 250 ecommerce sites shows that ChatGPT traffic underperforms almost every other channel: paid search, affiliate, even direct.
👉 Here’s the study.

The short version: lots of interest, very little intent. That makes sense.

People use ChatGPT the way they talk to an intern on their third day: “Just look around and see what you find.”

But the real takeaway isn’t the current performance. It’s the direction of the curve.

ChatGPT traffic is growing fast. And the gap is closing.

Atlas launched. The revolution will be painfully slow.

OpenAI just released Atlas, their new browser. I downloaded it. Haven’t opened it yet. But I already feel vaguely outdated.

It looks amazing. It probably is amazing.

But Google still has over 8 billion daily searches. Chrome still dominates. Safari still ships with your phone.

Tech adoption doesn’t happen when the feature drops. It happens when the friction disappears. Most people still haven’t switched search engines since middle school.

But when friction disappears—and it will—behavior changes overnight.

This isn’t a zero-sum game. But it is a new kind of pressure.

One of the most interesting findings in the ChatGPT traffic study: most users aren’t replacing Google. They’re adding ChatGPT to their workflows. And they’re searching more than they used to.

The implication? Search is becoming more useful. Not less.

But with usefulness comes dependency. And with dependency comes delegation.

And this is where things get weird.

**AI agents don’t browse like humans. They fail like machines.**

When you activate agent mode in ChatGPT, here’s what actually happens:

The agent sends real HTTP requests to your site.
It scans your HTML like a developer would—looking for form fields, links, buttons, inputs.
It tries to follow logical steps to complete a task (login, checkout, download).
If anything breaks that logic—hidden elements, weird naming, modals—it fails.

There’s no graceful fallback. No “oh I think the user meant this.” It just gives up.

That’s why websites built for people often break for agents. And that’s why conversion optimization is about to change.

CRO used to mean:

→ What’s the best headline?
→ Should the CTA be red or green?
→ Will a testimonial carousel build trust?

It still means those things. But now it also means:
→ Is your login form semantically structured?
→ Does your “Buy Now” button say “Buy Now,” or is it buried behind five div tags labeled <div id="coolAnimatedZebra">?
→ Is your site stable enough for a bot to act without hallucinating?

Because here’s the new reality:
Search used to bring users to your site.
Agents will try to act on your site.

And if your site isn’t ready for that, you won’t just lose conversions. You’ll never even get the attempt.

Practical stuff to actually do...

Open ChatGPT, turn on browser + code interpreter, and ask it to buy your product. Just watch.
Audit your site with a tool like Lighthouse, WAVE, or Screaming Frog for broken structure, hidden elements, JS dependencies, etc.
Flatten your paths. 3 clicks to purchase is becoming the new benchmark.
Make your buttons HTML buttons. Not divs with hope.
Keep your core flows (login, cart, checkout) stupidly obvious. Assume nothing.

This is about usability—for humans and machines.

Want to test how “agent-ready” your site really is? Ask ChatGPT to buy your product. Then ask it again tomorrow. It’ll try. It’ll fail. It’ll learn. Will your site?

Forward this to your dev team. Or don’t. But if your next quarterly report says “organic traffic up, conversions flat,” you’ll know why.

Congrats! Your site converts. Just not for robots...

ChatGPT traffic converts like garbage (for now)

Atlas launched. The revolution will be painfully slow.

This isn’t a zero-sum game. But it is a new kind of pressure.

AI agents don’t browse like humans. They fail like machines.

Practical stuff to actually do...

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**AI agents don’t browse like humans. They fail like machines.**