"Skip the Website"
September 17, 2026
Why the next landing page may be a conversation.
Welcome to this week's Takumi AI Brief.
For almost 30 years, digital marketing has revolved around one simple objective.
Get people to the website.
Search ads got them there. Social, email, influencers, SEO, all eventually pointed to the same destination.
Then we spent billions improving what happened after the click.
Wayfair is now testing an idea that turns that logic on its head.
What if there's no click to the website at all?
01 · The Trend That Actually Matters
OpenAI is testing a new ad format inside ChatGPT called a Sponsored Agent.
Instead of clicking an ad and landing on a brand site, the user opens a branded conversation inside ChatGPT itself.
Wayfair is one of the first brands testing it.
A customer can ask questions, compare products, and get help making a decision, without visiting Wayfair.com at all.
A traditional digital ad says here is our message, come to us.
A conversational ad says tell me what you need.
That's a completely different starting point.
The brand isn't waiting for the customer to enter its environment anymore.
It's entering the customer's conversation instead.
02 · The Landing Page Has a Competitor
A normal landing page still asks the customer to do most of the work.
Browse. Filter. Read. Compare. Decide.
A conversation can start with the problem instead.
Someone furnishing a small apartment could simply ask, I need a sofa under $1,500 that works with kids and can be delivered next month.
The system narrows the options and explains why they fit.
That changes the role of the interface entirely.
The website begins with the brand's catalogue.
The conversation begins with the customer's actual need.
That may end up being a far bigger shift than another improvement in conversion rate.
03 ·The Website Is Losing Its Position as the Default Destination
I don't think websites are going away.
But I think marketers are underestimating what's actually being disrupted here.
It isn't the website itself.
It's the assumption that owning the interface is what it takes to own the customer relationship.
Call this the Interface Illusion. For thirty years, brands assumed control of the interface meant control of the journey. Those two things are starting to come apart.
A customer can already discover your brand through ChatGPT, ask questions about your products, compare you with a competitor, and move toward a purchase, without ever entering an environment you control.
That's not a website problem.
It's a customer ownership problem.
And it changes how we think about media, ecommerce, CRM, product information, attribution, and brand experience all at once, because the journey is becoming distributed across interfaces the brand doesn't own.
04 · If I Were in the CMO Chair
I wouldn't rush out and build a branded agent tomorrow.
The format is early. Real questions remain around trust, accuracy, measurement and control.
But I'd start asking one much harder question.
If the customer journey happens somewhere we don't own, what exactly are we optimising for?
Most marketing measurement still assumes success eventually produces a visit.
→ Sessions
→ Clicks
→ Conversion rates
But AI may create more journeys where the brand influences the decision without ever owning the interface at all.
Which means our dashboards may be measuring a smaller and smaller share of what's actually happening.
And it means product information, brand voice and customer experience now have to travel well beyond the website itself.
The CMO Takeaway
The most interesting thing about Wayfair testing a branded agent inside ChatGPT isn't Wayfair.
It's the possibility that the conversation becomes the destination.
For years, brands assumed the customer journey would eventually arrive somewhere they controlled.
That assumption is starting to weaken.
Websites will still matter.
But the idea that every valuable customer journey needs to end there may not.
Which leaves CMOs with a much harder question than how to improve conversion rates.
If someone else owns the interface, who owns the customer?
That's the conversation worth having.
Mohit Lodha, Founder, Takumi AI