Why Forums Are Less Important in the Age of AI

Online forums once played a central role in helping people find answers, solve technical problems, and exchange knowledge. Today, AI tools can provide fast, personalized answers through live conversations, reducing the need for traditional forums. This post explains why forums are becoming less important, why websites should think carefully before installing bbPress on WordPress, and how LELB Society continues to use its long-established forum in a new way.

Video of Why Forums Are Less Important in the Age of AI

In this video, we discuss how the role of online forums has changed in recent years. Forums were once essential places for asking questions, finding solutions, and communicating with other users. However, AI has changed the way people search for information and solve problems. We also explain why LELB Society has kept its bbPress forum and how we are using it differently today.

The Golden Age of Online Forums

There was a time when online forums were among the most important parts of the internet. If you had a technical problem, wanted to learn something new, or needed advice from experienced users, an online forum was often the best place to start.

Websites and communities such as Stack Overflow, Stack Exchange, and countless WordPress forums became extremely valuable sources of information. Users asked questions, other members provided answers, and useful discussions remained available for future visitors. A good forum could therefore become a large knowledge base over many years.

WordPress websites also benefited from forum systems such as bbPress. Website owners could create discussion boards, support forums, question-and-answer sections, and private communities without developing a forum system from scratch. The model was simple: one person had a question, another person had the answer, and the entire community benefited from the conversation. However, the way people look for information has changed dramatically.

AI Is Changing How People Find Answers

Today, instead of searching through several forum pages, reading different replies, and trying to determine which answer is correct, users can simply ask an AI assistant. The major difference is that AI provides an interactive conversation. A user can ask a question, receive an answer, ask a follow-up question, provide additional information, and request a simpler or more technical explanation. The conversation can continue until the user understands the solution.

This is particularly important for developers and technical users. In the past, a developer might search Google, open several Stack Overflow pages, compare answers, read comments, and test different solutions. Today, an AI assistant can often explain the problem and suggest a solution within seconds.

This does not mean that forums have become completely useless. Forums can still contain valuable first-hand experiences, historical discussions, specialist knowledge, and conversations between real people. However, their role has changed.

AI has not necessarily made forums useless; it has made the traditional question-and-answer model much less essential for many users.

People increasingly expect immediate answers and interactive assistance rather than searching through a long discussion and waiting for another person to respond.

Think Twice Before Installing a Forum on WordPress

For WordPress website owners, this change is worth considering before installing a forum plugin such as bbPress. A forum requires more than simply installing a plugin. Someone has to manage discussions, moderate unwanted content, answer questions, deal with spam, maintain user accounts, and keep the community active. An empty forum can even make a website look less active rather than more useful.

Before adding a forum, ask yourself whether your website genuinely needs one. For example, a forum may still be appropriate when:

1. Your website depends on an active community that needs to communicate with one another.
2. Members need to share experiences that are difficult to obtain from an AI-generated answer.
3. Your organization needs a long-term discussion archive that members can search and revisit.
4. Users need to communicate with each other, rather than simply receive answers from an administrator or AI.
5. The forum is an important part of your service, such as a membership community, professional association, or support platform.

If none of these situations applies to your website, adding a forum simply because forums were popular in the past may not be a good decision. Every WordPress plugin adds another component that needs to be maintained. Therefore, the best WordPress website is not necessarily the website with the largest number of features. It is often the website with only the features that are genuinely useful.

Why I Have Kept bbPress on LELB Society

At LELB Society, I have used bbPress for around a decade. Because of that long history, removing it is not as simple as uninstalling an unnecessary plugin. Over the years, many forum topics and replies have become connected to other pages across the website. There are numerous internal links pointing to bbPress topics and replies, as well as links from forum discussions to other parts of the website.

Deleting bbPress could therefore create a large number of broken internal links and remove a substantial amount of historical content. The forum has become part of the structure and history of LELB Society. So, instead of deleting it, I have changed the way I use it.

The forum is no longer intended to function as a traditional high-volume discussion community. Instead, I use it as a place for members’ and students’ testimonials, feedback, support, and questions.

For registered members, the forum can also function somewhat like a support or ticket system. A student can leave a question or describe a problem, and I can respond directly. This gives the existing forum a practical purpose without requiring LELB Society to maintain a large, constantly active public discussion community.

In other words, I am not using bbPress simply because forums were popular ten years ago. I am using it because, after approximately a decade, the forum has accumulated valuable content, links, and history that still serve a purpose.

The Future of Forums Is More Specialized

I do not think forums will disappear completely. Instead, I expect them to become more specialized. Large public forums may have less influence than they once did because many users can obtain immediate answers from AI. At the same time, smaller communities may continue to benefit from forums when human experience, professional interaction, peer discussion, or a permanent record of conversations is important.

There is also an important difference between getting an answer and participating in a community.

AI is excellent at providing information and helping users solve many problems. A forum, on the other hand, can preserve the experiences and opinions of real people. It can show how different users approached the same problem and allow members to build relationships with one another.

Therefore, the question for a website owner should not be, “Should every website have a forum?” The better question is, “What does a forum provide that my users cannot get more effectively somewhere else?” If the answer is unclear, you probably do not need one.

For LELB Society, the answer is different because our forum has been part of the website for about a decade. Rather than removing it, we have adapted it to the current web environment. As technology changes, websites need to change with it.

The lesson is simple: do not install a forum because forums used to be important. Install one only when your users genuinely need a community, a discussion archive, or human-to-human interaction. In the age of AI, fewer websites may need traditional forums, but the forums that remain can have a much clearer and more specialized purpose.