Webflow is now an agentic web marketing platform

Andreas Møller

May 27, 2026

Read the announcement here
This is the latest in a long line of layoffs that explicitly mentions AI as the primary reason. In their own words they are moving to a simpler structure to build their new vision “The agentic web marketing platform”.

Webflow was a pioneer

Before we dive into Webflow's planned transformation and what “Agentic web” means, I want to first talk about Webflow the company.

Webflow used to be known for letting web designers create the most beautiful landing pages and engaging websites. For many years it was a favorite among creative studios worldwide. It was a major inspiration for Nordcraft.com. It was the first company that showed it was possible to build a tool that made web development faster and easier while producing high quality semantic code. Without Webflow, Nordcraft likely would have never existed. Read more about Nordcraft and Webflow

When Webflow first came out it was unlike any other tool on the market. It was the first website builder that felt like it was built for professional developers. Instead of hiding the HTML and CSS like most website builders, they put it front and center.

In recent years that has started to change. The company started shifting their focus from freelance developers and design studios to enterprise customers and marketing teams. The web platform is evolving faster than ever, but almost none of the new features are making their way into Webflow. Instead, the bulk of Webflow's development has been focused on enterprise features such as A/B testing and conversion optimization, features that Webflow users could already get through 3rd party integrations.

This transformation of the company and their target audience is what has now led to them laying off a large part of their team and the new focus on “The Agentic Web”.

The Agentic web

The Agentic Web means a web where AI agents, rather than people, are the primary consumers. It’s a web where people no longer use search engines and visit websites, but primarily interact with the web through an AI chat bot, and where companies care less about the user experience of their website and more about how easy it is for an AI agent to access the right information. Instead of SEO, companies focus on AEO or “Answer Engine Optimization”, where websites are built for AI agents first, and people second.

Webflow is far from the only company that is embracing the notion of the agentic web. Google recently added “AI mode” directly into their search box, so users can easily opt for AI-generated answers instead of search results.

What kind of web do we want?

It is hard not to feel that Webflow is abandoning the user base that made them what they are: the creative designers and developers who showed the world what a tool like Webflow was capable of in the right hands. With their new pivot that seems to all be in the past.

AI is undeniably a transformative technology, but what do we want that transformation to be? A web where every website is built for AI agents by AI agents does not sound like progress. It sounds like a place without creativity and without joy.

AI is a big part of what we do at Nordcraft. We use AI agents as part of our development workflow. Where other website builders treated AI as an add-on feature, Nordcraft's AI agent is fully integrated into the editor. We even designed a custom programming language specifically optimized for LLMs which is how we created the most powerful AI agent of any website builder. But at Nordcraft AI is the means and not the goal. The goal at Nordcraft is, and has always been, to empower creative designers and developers.

The web is an amazing canvas for creative ideas. With the technology we have today it is easier than ever to build a website. Someone with no experience can use the AI agent to build their first website and create a little corner of the web that is just their own. As they get better and learn more about the web, they can create even more engaging experiences.

That does not mean we should ignore agents. Making your website easily accessible to AI agents can increase brand awareness and can ultimately help generate more traffic to your site. But LLMs are already trained on the web. The best way to make your website “AI accessible” is to use clean and simple semantic HTML. That also happens to be the best way to make your website accessible to people.

We have to decide where we want to go from here. AI can be the end of the creative web, or the beginning of a whole new era.