There’s an important distinction between navigating and searching.
Navigating a site is usually a user’s first action. They visit your Experience Cloud, scan the content and perhaps click on a few menus. They usually have a reason to come to the site, and are looking for something in particular.
Searching is usually performed once the user doesn’t find what they are looking for. Perhaps they scanned the site, didn’t see the desired results, and then initiated a search. So search is often a last resort, not the first step.
There’s recent chatter that AI agents will replace application interfaces. You would ask an agent to provide you with information and they present it to you.
The challenge with this approach is that it replaces search, but doesn’t replace navigation. If your user doesn’t exactly know what they are looking for, asking an agent won’t help.
The takeaway
It’s important to offer both ways of interacting with sites. Navigation for those who want to browse, search for those who cannot find what they are looking for, or know what they want and don’t want to browse.
And AI agents won’t remove this need.