We don't have to follow the trends.

I've started asking clients a simple question when they bring it up. Not to be difficult, just to understand: "Do you actually use chatbots when you visit other websites?"

Simple is the word that keeps coming up. And I've learned that when a client says simple, they don't mean easy to use. They mean not impressive enough.

The pressure isn't really coming from clients anyway. It's coming from the web itself, from a decade of bloated pages, dark patterns, and feature arms races that quietly redefined what a "real" website looks like. Clients are just reading the room. The room is wrong, but they're not imagining it.
The shift might come from users, not decision-makers. It might come when enough people notice that the fast, calm site was easier to use. That they actually found what they came for. That they didn't have to close three things before reading a single line.