For this issue of Marketing Fix, I analysed 15 leading AI products’ website headers. Read on for the hero section copywriting tactics of the top 1%.
Back in 2016, we called it CRO. Now, we can call it conversionmaxxxing.
Last night, I got a stupid idea for a YouTube series.
Each episode features a 30y+ old startup marketer. We watch the host hand them a laptop. The marketer’s face contorts, either in awe or disgust. What they’ve just been shown is their own handiwork from ten years ago.
How would you feel when seeing the websites, blog articles, and infographics that you created in 2016? Back when cornflowers were bluer and organic traffic 100x higher…
I’m a sucker for nostalgia, so I couldn’t resist testing my own reaction to how Taxify’s website looked in July 2017. That’s when I joined the company now known as Bolt.
Hello, Wayback Machine my old friend.
My reaction was an elated “Awwwwww!” The good ol’ times.
That diagonally split background photo was my arch nemesis for years. It proved surprisingly resilient to any replacement. It just worked so well. The image shows both the app and how it materialises in the physical world. It even perfectly halves the “Tap a Button, Get a Ride” headline.
The next section, right after the hero, explains the key benefit and how the product works. The illustrations are product UI.
AI may have turned many areas of marketing on its head, but the basic rules of the website hero remain intact:
Communicate your product’s key benefit
Explain how your product works
Visually show your product
Keep it clear and simple
Have one call-to-action
I was surprised to see the current Bolt home page. I don’t have the data, but my marketer nose tells me that for the people looking to order a taxi, their Formula 1 message is confusing af.
It can be argued that Bolt is now a household-name brand, and everyone knows what it’s for. But even so, I don’t get the Formula 1 message. What’s happened to the app and rides?
If someone from Bolt’s marketing team reads this, please reply and explain.
In any case, let us race on towards the leading AI tools’ website hero analysis + tactics for fixing your own.
Your website hero: 2.016 vs. 2.026
The basics of a good website hero section in 2026 are more or less the same as in 2016. What’s changed is how people interact with it.
Thanks to AI and the innovations of BigTech companies, the level of noise in our everyday has increased 100x. Our environments are engineered for interruption, and many of us have the habit of constantly switching.
What it means for your website:
1. The conversion decision has already happened elsewhere.
About 90% of your (human) website visitors come there to convert. They’ve already made up their mind elsewhere: AI recommendations, Reddit, paid ads, friend’s recommendation, etc.
2. Any distraction or confusion might hurt the conversion decision.
If your Home page hero doesn’t match people’s expectations, they get confused and leave.
The trouble with tech products in 2026 is that they do much more than just one key task.
Think of Claude or Clay. They’re great for a million use cases. So how to write a hero headline that conveys it all? How to say as much as possible in as few words as possible?
Both have their own tagline approach. I’ll show you how more AI brands approach the hero headline in a moment.
3. Aesthetics matter more than ever
You don’t have to keep up with every design trend, e.g. 3D icons. But since Apple popularised the Liquid Glass style, nearly all brands jumped on board.
The bad news:
If your website header doesn’t leave a high-quality, trustworthy impression – or looks like Y2K without the intention of looking like early 2000s – visitors move on to your competitors whose website looks better.
The good news:
There are so many amazing AI website platforms and design tools (Wix, Framer, Figma) that enable marketers to set up beautiful, sleek landing pages.
And sometimes, simplicity is the key.
In case you suspect that your own website hero is also leaving the visitors confused – or simply doesn’t convert them – keep reading on.
Website hero tactics of 15 category-defining AI products
One of my convictions that hasn’t changed in time is this: If you want to learn about any area of marketing, see how the best-in-game do it.
And in 2026, the brands with best marketing and design talent are the AI tools.
I chose 15 leading AI products, and conducted a qualitative + quantitative analysis of their website home pages.
My curation process considered:
Status as category-leading AI product
Reputation for strong marketing
Extreme focus on design
Angle and category variety
Mix of audiences, B2C vs. B2B
The final list I came up with: Superpower, Dovetail, Ada, Clay, Granola, Attio, Cursor, Notion, Lovable, Superhuman, Replit, Wispr Flow, Sierra, Cofounder, and Mistral AI.
As the hero section does 90% of the heavy lifting, I focused on exactly that.
There’s a lot to unpack even in the hero alone:
The 1-sentence headline
Sub-headline and minimised text
Design: light or dark
Illustrations: photos or videos or product UI
Additional elements: chat interface or CTA, client logos, etc.
The questions I asked myself:
How do the headlines convey what the product does, and the USP to the user?
What’s the sentence structure of the headline? And the average length?
What are the most common elements used in headers?
What are the prevalent design trends?
What’s in the home page section following the header?
In this week’s Marketing Fix, I’m going to focus on the copy side of things. The next issue will cover design and user experience.
Below are the key takeaways. Read through and apply them right away.
1. Keep your headline short
The leading AI brands keep their website headlines short and sweet.
Ten out of fifteen analysed websites keep the headline at 6 words or fewer. The median Headline 1 length is five words.
The shortest headline award goes to Lovable (“Build something Lovable”), and the longest to Clay (“Go to market with unique data — and the ability to act on it”).
The sweet spot is at the 4-6 word count. “Build with facts, not vibes.” “Meet the night shift.” “Don’t type, just speak.”
But there’s a caveat. The short n’ catchy messages do not work alone.
Simply reading a headline like “Build with facts, not vibes” or “Meet the night shift” wouldn’t tell you what the product does.
The short headlines always have a subheadline underneath them.
This part carries the literal description. As many as 13 of the 15 sites split the copy exactly this way.
Still, I’d argue that the best website headers skip the subheadline completely. More on how they do it shortly (pun intended).
2. Most headlines talk about brand and/or category
It doesn’t matter whether your headline is five or twelve words, if you fail to convey what your product does + how it benefits the customer.
Of the 15 sites I analysed, the Headline 1 fell under one of six angles.
1. Brand as a subject (4 of 15): X helps you with Y
“Cursor is your coding agent for building ambitious software.” (Cursor)
“Cofounder lets you run an entire company with agents” (Cofounder)
“Better customer experiences. Built on Sierra.” (Sierra)
“Build something Lovable” (Lovable)
2. Category claim (3 of 15): What is this product?
“The agentic customer experience platform” (Ada)
“The revenue platform engineered for scale” (Attio)
“The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings” (Granola)
3. New category defining (3 of 15): Meet this new product
“Superpowers, everywhere you work” (Superhuman)
“Frontier AI. In your hands.” (Mistral AI)
“Meet the night shift.” (Notion)
4. Contrast (2 of 15): Do X not Y
“Build with facts, not vibes” (Dovetail)
“Don’t type, just speak” (Wispr Flow)
5. Outcome promise (2 of 15): Do or get X
“Get better at being healthy, every year” (Superpower)
“Go to market with unique data — and the ability to act on it” (Clay)
6. Question (1 of 15): Question + chat interface
“What will you build?” (Replit)
3. Put the blablabla in subheader
Nobody reads it anyway.
And yet, most analysed websites still do it.
My bet is that it’s not for people, but AI algos scanning the websites to understand what the product does.
As to humans, the better place to address them is in the section right after the hero.
Several analysed AI brands use the after-header section to communicate how their product works.
4. Test non-traditional CTAs
The good old “Get Started” still works: 8 out of 15 brands run some version of the classic formula.
“Get started” (Cursor)
“Start for free” (Attio)
“Try Dovetail free”
“Download for free” (Granola, Wispr Flow)
“Get Notion free.” (Notion, duh!)
“Try” and “Start” are the default for a reason: it requires zero thinking from the visitor. No objections = more conversions.
The more creative (but not necessarily better-converting) heroes treat the button as one more line of copy.
If your headline angle is strong, the button is free real estate to say it again .
“Run a company” (Cofounder
“Become a member” (Superpower)
“Send me a demo” (Attio)
“Listen to a real call” (Ada)
No button, just a prompt box (Lovable, Replit).
In 2026, the most radical version is the CTA that is the product. Replit pairs it with “What will you build?” and provides a textbox field.
Personally, I’m a fan of interactive headers that invite the visitor to engage with the product before taking any action. It pulls them right in.
5. “AI-powered” is SO passé
In 2023, having AI in your product was a novelty. In 2026, it’s self-evident.
And yet, every marketer still faces the Headline 1 dilemma: to say the magic word, or to assume that everyone knows, anyway?
As to the leading AI brands, one of the last words they’d use in their Headline 1 is “AI.”
Only 5 of 15 analysed headlines mention AI or agents at all. But 12 out of 15 still say it somewhere above the fold.
Sierra, Replit, and Superpower never say it anywhere above the fold; Superhuman tucks it into the sub.
1. “AI-powered” is dead.
Zero out of 15 headlines use the 2023 cliché. The word either moved up (”Frontier AI. In your hands.”), or moved out entirely.
If AI-powered” is still in your headline, get rid of it fast.
2. “Agent” is the new “AI.”
Cursor sells a “coding agent,” Cofounder runs your company “with agents,” and Ada claims an “agentic” platform. Notion and Clay tuck “agents” into the subheadline.
The framing shift is significant: AI describes a technology, agent describes a hire. Further, “your coding agent” instead of “an agent” turns a software tool into staff.
3. Omission is a status symbol.
Sierra, Superhuman, Replit, and Superpower skip AI in the headline entirely. Sierra doesn’t even say it anywhere above the fold. When you’re the category leader, AI is assumed.
Increasingly, putting “AI” in your headline reads like a redundant buzzword.
TL;DR: Five key takeaways
Research takeaway #1: 10 of 15 leading AI brands keep their headline at 6 words or fewer.
Research takeaway #2: Most headlines follow a brand or category led angle.
Research takeaway #3: The subheadline's real reader is increasingly a machine. Humans get convinced in the section after the hero.
Research takeaway #4: 8 of 15 brands still run the classic "Get started / Try free" formula. The boldest replace it with a prompt box.
Research takeaway #5: Only 5 of 15 headlines say "AI" or "agent" at all, zero say "AI-powered," and the category leaders skip the word entirely.
Test your own website hero against these five. If it survives, reply and let me know.
In the next issue, I’ll be covering the design part of the analysis.
Light vs. dark heroes, product UI vs. illustration, and why nobody uses stock photos anymore.
Needles in a haystack
I’m sorry, but I’ll have to skip the needles this week. Not least because I’ve been so busy w/ work that there’s not much I’ve read or seen. Oh well… [Questions her life decisions]
Grazie mille for being a reader.
I’ll be back in two weeks with another Marketing Fix.
Until then: Please share the newsletter with others who’d benefit.
Need help fixing your marketing game? Read more and contact me here.
Have a good summer y’all!
Karola
Great timing, writing my first landing, 9 words and kinda current pain-fix angle. Actually struggling with the CTA buttons a lot, the whole point is to get people in a waitlist for a physical product being developed and choosing the right words to get people excited about something that has just lived in your head for months is a pain in the...So excited to see pre-launch landing analysis also :)