Digital experience agency GammaDX has launched a dedicated AI agent experience design practice (AXD) and launched the Gamma AXD Index, with inaugural findings revealing just 12 out of 50 Australian websites tested were fully agent ready.
While digital experiences have historically been designed exclusively for people, consumers are increasingly turning to AI to help research and buy products and services, using AI agents to find information about products, comparing options, filling out forms, and completing transactions on their behalf.
The first Gamma AXD Index shows that while the majority of the sites tested can be accessed and understood by AI agents, none are yet designed for agents to act on behalf of users, meaning organisations are vulnerable to potential lost transactions or sales.
Gamma assessed 10 Australian websites across each of five sectors, retail, banking and insurance, utilities, travel, and government and services. Using its 100-point proprietary methodology for scoring agent readiness, the index ranked sites across five criteria: discovery and access, content comprehension, navigation and interaction, task completion, and trust and governance.
Of the 50 websites examined, 12 were classified as agent-ready, 36 as capable and two as emerging. Websites in banking and insurance were the leaders in AI-agent readiness, followed by retail, utilities, travel, with government and services coming last.
None of the 50 websites scored blocked the six AI agents tested, but sites were less prepared for agents to act on their behalf, averaging 74 per cent for task readiness. Trust and governance were the weakest area in every sector, averaging 56 per cent. No website published a clear position on AI agents, and only nine of 50 published a security contact.
George Pappas, managing director, GammaDX said the AXD Index results reflect a shift in how organisations need to think about digital experience.
“Most websites were built for people to use directly, but as customers start using AI agents to research products and access services, organisations need to check how their sites perform when an agent is doing the work,” Pappas said.
“They need to know whether an agent can use their services reliably and safely. Can it complete a form, request a quote or make a booking, and does it stop when human approval is required? Our findings show that while some of our biggest organisations are on the right track, there is much work still to be done. These are experience questions as much as they are technology questions.”
Gamma has launched a dedicated AXD practice bringing together its existing strategy, experience, platform and AI capabilities to help organisations assess and improve how authorised agents interact with their digital experiences.
The practice spans readiness assessments, design and implementation projects, and ongoing optimisation for enterprise websites and applications. It will cover six capabilities across the agent experience lifecycle, from readiness strategy and discoverability through to interaction design, integration and engineering, testing and assurance, and ongoing optimisation.
Pappas added: “Our AXD practice applies the same rigour we have brought to digital experience, but looks at it from the perspective of an agent. We can see where an agent can find the right information, where it struggles to understand what it is seeing, where a journey breaks down and where the organisation needs to introduce a human decision or approval.”
GammaDX launched earlier this year and is part of Mercantile Co., the recently announced parent company established by Pappas and George Photios, the founders of digital marketing agency G Squared.
Mercantile Co.comprises of G Squared, focused on digital performance across paid media, SEO, performance creative and data; Burrow, a 24/7 social media monitoring, listening and community management agency launched in 2022 and staffed by an Australian team; Wordie, which designs, builds, and supports WordPress solutions for organisations; and GammaDX.
