Future of conversational UIs: key takeaways from SUGCON EU

The future of conversational UIs: key takeaways from SUGCON Europe

At SUGCON Europe, Rob Coyle, Director of Product Design at Sitecore, shared a vision of where conversational AI is taking user interfaces and content management. His session painted a future where traditional UI conventions may no longer apply, and where CMSs must evolve to meet new demands. As conversational interfaces become the norm, brands, designers, and technologists face fundamental shifts that will reshape how digital experiences are built, managed, and monetised.

The rise of AI-driven interfaces

One signal of change is Johnny Ive’s move to OpenAI, suggesting that AI-driven UI innovation is now at the heart of the next design revolution. Meanwhile, Gartner projects a 26% fall in traditional search traffic by 2026, highlighting a growing reliance on conversational agents.

Instead of users discovering and navigating websites manually, conversational interactions will become the default, reducing the need for traditional search, navigation, and even page-based structures.

The evolving role of the CMS

In this new world, CMSs must adapt. No longer is it enough to publish web pages; CMSs may need to generate fractional content designed for AI consumption, coupled with clear usage instructions. Concepts like "AI.txt" or "llms.txt" are emerging, new equivalents to "robots.txt" that tell AIs how to interpret and use content, as of current writing both approaches are proposals, yet to be adopted as a standard.

Regardless of format, the CMS will remain a source of truth, even as content is increasingly mediated, reinterpreted, or even generated by AI systems. Managing content for AI-first interactions, not just for human browsing, becomes a core responsibility.

Rethinking traditional UI concepts

Rob challenged the very foundation of today’s UX patterns. Shopping carts, checkout processes, even standalone email apps, do these survive in a world of agentic interfaces?

In future, conversational UIs could seamlessly orchestrate tasks on behalf of users once permissions are granted. This raises critical questions about brand identity: if AI builds the UI dynamically, based only on brand guidelines, how much of the experience remains within a brand’s control?

Applications themselves may behave more like serverless functions, spun up on demand, then dismantled once their purpose is served.

Implications for design and development

If conversational interfaces dominate, the role of UI and front-end development fundamentally shifts. Voice-first, textless interactions will lower the need for graphical UIs as we know them today.

Accessibility challenges become more complex, while voice removes some barriers, it introduces new ones. Designers and developers must rethink how they make digital experiences inclusive, personal, and trustworthy without relying on visual design conventions.

Monetisation and the new digital economy

A conversational future also upends monetisation models. How do brands compete for presence inside AI-mediated conversations? Will CMSs start to manage monetisation agents, or will this responsibility be delegated to entirely new ecosystems?

Imagine asking ChatGPT a question and receiving tailored, sponsored responses woven seamlessly into the conversation. Sponsored content could evolve far beyond traditional display ads. Subscription models, already popular in streaming services could offer users an ad-free conversational experience but leave advertisers seeking new ways to engage. Platforms like Google, notably, still resist offering true ad-free options. Will conversational platforms follow suit, or allow users to buy their way out of advertising? The economics of digital engagement may be rewritten.

Accelerating change and what it means

New protocols and frameworks, such as Anthropic's MCP (Model Context Protocol) and Google’s A2A (Agent-to-Agent) are accelerating the evolution of digital ecosystems. The future of conversational UIs may arrive faster than expected, requiring content teams, platform owners, and marketers to rethink the way they manage and deliver digital experiences now, not later. What does content as a service look like in the future?

Key questions for the industry

As this shift gathers pace, critical questions emerge:

• Who truly owns the user interface of the future, the brand, the platform, or the AI?
• How can content creators continue to shape experiences in an AI-mediated world?
• What new skills will designers, developers, and strategists need to thrive?

These are not theoretical concerns; they are strategic challenges that organisations must start addressing today.

What does AI think of all this?

So, what do ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini make of all this? What is their vision of the future. We asked each model to provide its thoughts with the following prompt:

"Based on the themes explored in this blog post about the future of conversational UIs, such as the shift away from traditional interfaces, the evolving role of CMSs, AI-managed monetisation, and dynamic brand experiences, what do you think the digital experience landscape will look like in five years? Keep your response to no more than two paragraphs."

ChatGPT (o3 – Uses Advanced Reasoning)

By 2030, the “interface” will feel less like a screen you visit and more like an ambient layer of intelligence that follows you from device to device. Most everyday tasks—shopping, booking travel, even triaging email—will be delegated to personal agent-stacks that broker access to a mesh of server-less micro-services spun up on demand. Instead of designing pages or even apps, brands will publish richly structured “experience packets” (content + intent + brand-safe design tokens) into headless CMSs that double as policy engines, exposing AI-readable manifests (think ai.txt on steroids). These packets let any compliant model compose, remix, and vocalise the brand’s voice while honouring licensing, tone and accessibility requirements—a dynamic, conversation-first contract between creator and machine.

Monetisation and trust shift just as radically. Attention is captured inside dialogue, so the ad slot becomes a context-aware “suggestion” surfaced by your agent only when it improves the objective you’ve set (“find me eco-friendly trainers under £100”). Brands will pay for ranking inside these intent graphs, while subscription tiers let users dial commercial influence up or down. Because every interaction is mediated by AI, provenance metadata (watermarks, cryptographic attestations) travels with content to prove origin and guard against hallucination or deepfake offers. The winners in this landscape aren’t those with the prettiest UI—they’re the ones who master granular content governance, conversational brand presence, and algorithm-native commercial models long before the screen finally disappears.

Claude (3.7 Sonnet)

In five years, the digital experience landscape will likely be dominated by conversational interfaces that fundamentally alter how we interact with technology. Traditional websites and apps as we know them will diminish in importance as AI-mediated conversations become the primary touchpoint between users and digital services. Content management systems will evolve beyond page publishing to become orchestrators of granular, context-aware content designed specifically for AI consumption, complete with usage instructions and permissions frameworks. Brands will need to reimagine their digital presence as dynamic conversation partners rather than static destinations, with brand guidelines becoming algorithmic rather than visual.

The economics of digital engagement will undergo a radical transformation, with monetization happening through seamlessly integrated sponsored responses within conversations rather than intrusive display advertising. New technical standards like Model Context Protocol and Agent-to-Agent communications will enable AI systems to negotiate permissions, transactions, and content delivery on users' behalf. This will blur the boundaries between applications, making them appear more like on-demand services summoned through conversation and dismissed when no longer needed. Organizations that embrace this paradigm shift soonest—rethinking content strategy, interface design, and business models for an AI-mediated world—will define the next generation of digital experiences.

Gemini (2.5 Flash Experimental, Uses Advanced Reasoning)

Based on the blog post's themes, in five years (by 2030), the digital experience landscape will be fundamentally reshaped by the dominance of conversational and AI-driven interfaces. Traditional websites and app-based navigation will likely see reduced prominence as users interact with brands and access information primarily through conversational agents. This shift will necessitate a radical evolution of Content Management Systems (CMSs), which will need to focus less on serving traditional web pages and more on managing granular, AI-consumable content with explicit usage instructions. The concept of a fixed brand "website" may fade, replaced by dynamic, AI-constructed experiences orchestrated based on brand guidelines and user context.

This future landscape will also see significant disruption in digital monetisation and brand control. AI agents will likely manage and integrate sponsored content seamlessly within conversational flows, moving beyond current ad formats and potentially introducing new subscription models for ad-free experiences. Brands will face the challenge of maintaining a consistent and controlled identity when the user interface is dynamically generated by AI platforms. Success will depend on mastering content designed for AI interpretation, adapting monetisation strategies, and navigating the complex ownership dynamics between brands, platforms, and AI.

Common Themes

Despite personal reservations on whether these are forward thinking “opinions” or simply an analysis of the given text, the three conclusions share several strong common themes that point to a transformative shift in how digital experiences, branding, and monetisation will function in an AI-dominated future:

• Conversational and AI-Mediated interfaces will dominate
• Content must be granular, context-aware, and AI-Ready
• Monetisation and Brand Strategy Will Radically Shift

Conclusion

Conversational UIs are no longer a futuristic idea, they are rapidly becoming reality. For brands, agencies, and technologists, the move to AI-first experiences demands action. It is time to rethink not only how we design and build digital products, but also how we monetise, govern, and protect them. Those who adapt fastest will define the next era of digital experience.