What is AI Agentic Experience and Why Provide a Great AX for Users?

In this episode of the Modern Web Podcast, hosts Rob Ocel and Danny Thompson talk with Sean Roberts, Head of AX Architecture and Distinguished Engineer at Netlify, about the emerging discipline of Agentic Experience (AX). They explore how AX is reshaping how we design services for AI agents, what makes an agent experience successful, and why traditional user flows often break down in agent-driven systems. Sean discusses the role of MCPs, the challenges of discoverability, and the future of content delivery in an agent-first web. They also dig into real-world examples, like how an agent accidentally took down Netlify’s homepage, and debate whether CMSs still have a place in this new landscape. Key points from this episode- Agent experience is already part of every digital service and needs to be intentionally designed to ensure agents can interact effectively- SEO still matters but new practices like lightweight pages, structured content, and llm dot txt files help improve discoverability for agents- Systems that require human confirmation for basic actions create friction for agents and should be redesigned to allow autonomous task completion- LLMs make it possible to turn unstructured content into structured data on demand which raises questions about whether traditional CMS platforms are still necessary.Sean Roberts: https://www.linkedin.com/in/developsean/Danny Thompson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dthompsondev/Rob Ocel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robocel/This Dot Labs Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotLabsThis Dot Media Twitter: https://x.com/ThisDotMediaThis Dot Labs Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisdotlabs/This Dot Labs Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisdot/This Dot Labs Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisdotlabs.bsky.socialSponsored by This Dot Labs: ai.thisdot.co