• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, 9 hours ago

There has been so much discussion about the value of websites in the future that after seeing this patent, it all makes much more sense.

Google’s patent -- titled AI-generated Content Page Tailored To A Specific User, published on January 27, 2026, in the United States Patent and Trademark Office -- was filed on January 3, 2025, by several inventors. The patent number is US-12536233B1.

This patent allows Google to evaluate a brand's landing page -- and if it predicts the page will underperform for a specific user, generate a machine-learning-generated alternative page in real-time. It's described in the background of a “conventional system."

Improvements are described in a way that the inventors believe improves the user experience and engagement by retrieving a page and presenting it to the user that could become far more relevant than a page the brand created.

The idea of the patent is to direct a computer system to an AI-generated page.

The system receives a user query from a device tied to a user account, generates a standard search result page for the query, and calculates a landing page score, similar to other types of scores Google uses to calculate ranking in search engine results.

If the score exceeds what the patent’s creators called a “threshold value,” the system generates an updated search results page containing a navigation link to an AI-generated version of that landing page. The original page is not viewable. Instead, the user sees the updated page.

Producing the page requires the model to process current query and contextual information associated with the user account, as well as historic queries.

A call-to-action button linking to a product page, a product feed that provides an overview of relevant items, an AI chatbot, sitelinks to product detail pages, and a personalized headline with suggested filters and suggested clusters are all elements that the page can include.

A navigation link on the AI page can be included in sponsored content, also known as an ad unit. In that search result page it can include sitelinks to a several landing pages.

The AI-generated page can include a call-to-action button to a product page of an associated product, a product feed that provides a product overview, or even an AI chatbot.

When MediaPost published an article and report from Microsoft about websites fading and agentic technology taking over, I had not seen Google’s U.S. patent.

It was an educated guess based on comments made to MediaPost via email from Matt Howland, president of Cordial and chair of the Shopper Context Protocol (SCP). And, survey data that Microsoft Advertising shared earlier this week about the future of the web.

I thought the topic was important enough to bring it up again in the same week. The headline of the blog post -- Websites Are Fading, Brands Prepare For What's Next -- will shake the industry if Google intends to carry through with this option.