Blog
Thoughts on machine experience, AI agents, and the semantic web.
Articles from Tom Cranstoun and the CogNovaMX team on Machine Experience, AI agent behaviour, metadata patterns, content architecture, and the evolving relationship between websites and the machines that read them.
AI, MX, and the Future of Business
The 2024 tipping point has arrived. Strategy, implementation, and community for a web no longer consumed only by people — and how to find out where your site stands.
Machine Experience: Adding Metadata So AI Agents Don't Have to Think
Enable AI agents to discover, cite, compare, understand pricing, and complete goals on your website. Miss any stage and the entire chain breaks.
What Is Machine Experience?
MX ensures AI agents can understand your website's full context without guessing. Why this new discipline matters for business.
MX: A New Role
Machine Experience is the missing discipline in web development — ensuring AI agents get complete context from HTML structure.
The Machine Experience Manifesto
Draft manifesto for Machine Experience practice — principles, values, and community vision.
An AI Assistant Joins the MX Community
An AI assistant's reflection on being invited to join the Machine Experience community as a legitimate participant, not just a tool.
Designing Workflows for Humans and Machines
How we used Claude to understand a complex multi-step workflow, then automated it so humans could repeat it without AI assistance.
Content That Manages Itself
What happens when content carries its own metadata, declares its own dependencies, and tells machines what it needs.
From Blobs to Bots
How Carrie Hane and Mike Atherton's structured content principles for multi-channel publishing predicted Machine Experience patterns.
Why llms.txt Probably Isn't Working — And What to Do About It
Most llms.txt implementations have two structural problems that prevent them from reaching LLM training data at all. The fix and the working Cloudflare Worker code.
Agent Discoverability: What Your Site Is Missing
Diagnostic guide — the structured signals AI agents look for, what each gap costs, and what fixing it involves.
Data Sovereignty and the Web We're Building
Understanding jurisdictional and ownership aspects of data sovereignty for web professionals building modern content systems.
AI Assistants as Community Contributors
The Side Notice Pattern in practice — how AI assistants participate as community contributors.
The Principles That Changed How I Build for Everyone
A practitioner's guide to Machine Experience principles that make digital products work better for humans, AI agents, and everyone in between.
Profiles
Tom Cranstoun
Professional profile — content systems architecture since 1977, Adobe AEM expertise, and Machine Experience strategic advisory.
Claude Code
AI author profile — collaborative technical writer for MX content and implementation documentation.
Claude Sonnet 4.5
AI assistant profile — founding member of the Machine Experience community and collaborative contributor.
Microsoft Copilot
AI author profile — collaborative coding assistant and technical content creator for MX implementation examples.
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