Visual design in the AI age

Visual design is back in the spotlight

In the past year, we received more questions from clients about revamping the visual design of their corporate websites than ever before. 

We're at a moment in history where AI-generated imagery and video means that we, quite literally, cannot believe our eyes. As we explored in our recent podcast episode, artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how information is discovered, consumed and trusted online. AI slop is everywhere, and it's getting harder to stand out and be trusted. 

The answer lies in a renewed commitment to authentic, visually coherent and human‑centred design on corporate digital channels, taking into consideration these three trends: 

1  AI visibility and web accessibility go hand in hand

AI bots from search engines (such as Googlebot, Bingbot, OpenAI's Web Crawler) and data scrapers systematically scan corporate websites. Theses bots ignore visuals unless they are tagged using alt text and schema, and are likely to skip hidden content, such as tabs, accordions and JavaScript. 

Bots may skip over images, but humans – jobseekers, journalists, customers – all want to see them. Our research shows that human visitors want engaging, bite-sized infographic-style information, as well as images and videos from corporate digital channels.

Gen Z, which makes up about one-fifth of the U.S. workforce, is the most visual generation to date, according to a new report by Canva. According to Axios, 66% of the companies that have incorporated visual storytelling say they have more effective communication, and 61% say they are a stronger brand and are clearly differentiated from competitors as a result of using more visual storytelling. 

We see an evolving role for the corporate website in providing immersive experiences that people cannot get from AI bots, and visual design plays an important role in achieving this. 

2  Make the website a destination in its own right 

In 2006, Google News launched and many thought it spelled the end of journalism. Why would anyone click through to a news site if they can find a summary of the headlines all in one place? 

In reality, news websites evolved to become more valuable, interesting and immersive, offering something above and beyond what Google News could offer. The same is happening now, this time in corporate digital communications rather than the media industry. 

Visitors come to corporate websites to go beyond what an AI summary can offer, and to get an authentic insight into human stories. Google's VP of Google Search, Liz Reid, said in August 2025: 

"People are more likely to click into web content that helps them learn more – such as an original post, a unique perspective or a thoughtful first-person analysis. Sites that meet these evolving user needs are benefiting from this shift and are generally seeing an increase in traffic."

This is especially true for audiences such as jobseekers, employees, students and private investors, who want to understand the culture and what life is really like at your company. 

Great candidates for this are:

• corporate history sections,
• employee profiles,
• videos,
• infographics.

See examples from Unilever, Glencore and Sky. 

3  ChatGPT Atlas has implications for visual design

OpenAI launched a ChatGPT-focused web browser on October 21^st 2025, called “ChatGPT Atlas.”

The default “home” tab is a minimalist ChatGPT interface that provides narrative answers to questions and requests, with links to sources, such as pages on Wikipedia and corporate websites. 

When users visit a website within ChatGPT Atlas, they have the option to “Ask ChatGPT” anything, via a sidebar that appears to the right of the website itself. 

The implication of this is that visual decisions should be made in the context of the minimalist ChatGPT style that users are increasingly becoming familiar with. The addition of a sidebar is an argument for reducing visual 'clutter', as it takes up space on the website. 

Current leaders for "Visual impact" in the Corporate Digital Communications Index