The old UX mantra was simple: make it fast, make it easy, and get the user where they need to go.
And that still matters. If your site takes forever to load or your checkout flow has 12 steps, you’re not going to win anyone over. But the expectations around “good UX” have evolved, and in 2025, usability is just the baseline.
The next wave of UX is experiential.
It’s not just about helping users complete a task. It’s about how the interface feels along the way. What impression it leaves. What story it tells. And increasingly, how it performs for both humans and AI systems.
Let’s unpack what’s changing and why you might need to rethink how you define “good UX.”
Point-A-to-Point-B UX: The old definition of success
Point-A-to-Point-B UX is task-focused. It’s built around conversion goals, efficiency, and usability heuristics.
It looks like:
- A fast-loading site with no dead ends
- Clear navigation and labels
- Buttons in predictable places
- Simple, linear flows that minimize friction
There’s nothing wrong with this! But in many industries, that’s now just the price of entry. If everyone is optimized for conversion, how do you stand out?
Experiential UX: The new expectation
Experiential UX goes further. It still values clarity and speed, but it also incorporates emotion, brand expression, trust-building, and even delight.
It answers questions like:
- How does the design make me feel?
- Do I trust this experience enough to engage deeper?
- Does the brand personality come through, or does it feel like another cookie-cutter site?
- Would I remember this interaction in a week or recommend it to someone else?
A few examples:
- Instead of a plain confirmation message, users get a celebration animation (small dopamine hit).
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- Instead of a generic FAQ, an onboarding flow answers questions proactively, reducing user anxiety.
- Instead of stock photos and corporate tone, a fintech site shows real humans, with transparent copy about how their money is managed.
These touches don’t slow down the experience. They deepen it.
And great experiential UX should be inclusive. That means designing for people with different abilities, devices, and contexts. Accessibility features like clear contrast, screen-reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and alt text aren’t just compliance checkboxes—they’re part of the emotional experience. When users can interact with your site confidently, no matter their needs, that builds trust and loyalty, too.
AI is raising the stakes (again)
So we’ve defined experiential UX as how an interface makes you feel. But not every user is human anymore.
AI agents, from search crawlers to digital assistants to ChatGPT itself, are now “reading” your site on behalf of users. And while these agents don’t feel emotions, they do interpret structure, clarity, and intent. They’re evaluating your UX in a very different way—one that prioritizes semantics over vibes.
That’s where Agent Experience (AX) comes in.
AX is about optimizing your site for the machines navigating it: ensuring your content is legible to AI, your hierarchy makes sense, and your calls-to-action are machine-readable. Plus, many of the same best practices that make your site more experiential for humans (clear structure, authentic copy, accessibility considerations, and thoughtful interactions) also make it more usable for AI agents.
That means:
- Clean, consistent headings help AI models summarize your offerings.
- Descriptive button labels (“See all pricing tiers”) are more legible than generic ones (“Click here”).
- Semantic HTML and accessible ARIA labels ensure content can be interpreted by both screen readers and AI agents.
- Content hierarchy and prompt zones allow AI agents to match your content to user intent more accurately.
In other words, experiential UX is also agent-readable UX. You’re not just creating for people anymore. You're creating for people and their co-pilots.
What does this mean for teams?
It means your work doesn’t end at “working.”
You still need to be usable, but you also need to be memorable, honest, and emotionally intelligent. You still need consistency, but you also need flexibility and room to surprise, connect, and adapt across channels.
You don’t need to gamify your entire flow or add fireworks to every scroll.
But you should ask:
- Does our UX reinforce our brand or flatten it?
- Are we helping users feel in control or just pushing them through?
- Is our experience accessible to all users, regardless of ability or device?
- What kind of experience would I want from a brand like this?
Great UX isn’t just beautiful and fast—it’s inclusive, understandable, and usable by everyone who lands on your site, whether they’re navigating with a screen reader or through an AI agent. If you don’t have all the answers yet, you’re not alone. But the teams asking these questions today will be ahead of the curve tomorrow.
