At some point in the last year, bots became your biggest website visitors. Not people. Not crawlers. Not even APIs. Bots with goals. Agents with plans.
Linda Tong, CEO of Webflow, has seen it up close – and she's redesigning the web to meet them.
In this episode, we talk about what it means to build agent-first websites:
How to talk to bots.
How to let them click buttons.
And how to create experiences that work for humans and AI – without turning the internet into garbage.
We cover:
– When bot traffic started overtaking humans
– Why AEO (agentic engine optimization) is the new SEO
– Why websites need a second language – for LLMs
– What "agent-ready" structure really means
– Hybrid UX: visual for humans, semantic for agents
– Why dynamic, personalized web experiences are overdue
– Leadership, kindness, and Ender’s Game as a design philosophy
This one's fast, nerdy, real, and fun. Linda’s not afraid to challenge old assumptions – or to break her own product if it means building what’s next.
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Guest:
Linda Tong, CEO @Webflow
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lktong/
https://x.com/yaylt
https://webflow.com/
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*Chapters*
0:00 - Introduction
0:43 - The Rise of Non-Human Traffic
1:54 - When Did the Shift to Bot Traffic Start?
2:24 - Good Bots vs. Bad Bots
3:39 - The Emergence of AEO (AI/Agentic Engine Optimization)
5:18 - Building Websites for Agents
6:43 - What Agents Need from a Website
8:55 - Enabling Agents to Take Action
10:04 - The Future of Websites: Dual Human and Agent Interfaces
12:12 - The Vision for a Conversational Webflow
14:19 - Beyond Creation: The Future of Dynamic Web Experiences
18:42 - Is SEO Dead? The Relationship Between SEO and AEO
22:10 - The Impact of AGI on Web Development
24:19 - The Book That Shaped Linda
27:00 - Final Thoughts: The Need for "Kind AI"
Turing Post is a newsletter about AI's past, present, and future. Publisher Ksenia Se explores how intelligent systems are built – and how they’re changing how we think, work, and live.
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