Slobodan Manić

From CRO to AXO: Adapting to AI in Digital Marketing

Slobodan "Sani" Manić — host of the No Hacks Podcast, co-founder of Web Performance Tools and PodPacer, and one of the organizers of the Future of eXperimentation conference — joins Guido to talk about the shift from Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to what he calls Agent Experience Optimization (AXO). His thesis: your next million visitors won't be human. As AI agents do more of the browsing and buying, websites need to be designed for both humans and machines. Sani's framework, Machine-First Architecture, sets out four pillars — Identity, Structure, Content, and Interaction — for building sites that actually work in this new reality. Sani is also co-running the pre-event workshop at Space Academy on May 6th with Iqbal Ali, on building reliable agents and workflows with n8n and small models. Get your Space Academy tickets: <a href="https://experimentationelite.com/">https://experimentationelite.com/</a> Key takeaways: <ul> <li>The shift from CRO to AXO is no longer optional — it's a question of when, not if</li> <li>AI can enhance personalization, automate interactions, and surface predictive insights</li> <li>The job becomes orchestrating AI alongside human judgment, not replacing one with the other</li> </ul> Links: <ul> <li><a href="https://slobodanmanic.com/">https://slobodanmanic.com/</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.nohackspod.com/">https://www.nohackspod.com/</a></li> <li><a href="https://experimentationelite.com/">https://experimentationelite.com/</a></li> </ul>