THE PERSON BEHIND NO HACKS
SLOBODAN "SANI" MANIC
Slobodan "Sani" Manic is a website optimisation consultant, keynote speaker, and the founder of No Hacks. He created Machine-First Architecture, a method for building websites that work for human readers and AI agents alike, and has spent more than 15 years in web development and optimisation. Based in Portugal. Allergic to hype.
THE WORK
Sani's consultancy runs through Web Performance Tools and is built on Machine-First Architecture.
Sani co-founded Web Performance Tools in 2024, and everything he takes on runs through it. The work is built around Machine-First Architecture, a methodology for building websites that work natively for both human readers and AI agents. It has four pillars:
- Identity. How a business shows up across AI search surfaces: the entity graph, Organization schema, and brand signals like
sameAslinks. - Structure. The website itself as a data model, with semantic HTML, schema density, URL architecture, and a deliberate bot policy.
- Content. Front-loaded, verifiable claims that survive being extracted and quoted by an LLM.
- Interaction. Forms, checkout, and other transaction surfaces that agents need to complete on a user's behalf.
The goal on every project is the same. Turn a website from a human-only surface into a machine-first one that humans and AI agents can both read, parse, and act on.
Most of the work is with SEO, CRO, and web teams trying to stay visible and functional as AI agents become primary readers and actors on the web: reading content, filling forms, and completing transactions on behalf of humans. Agent Experience Optimisation done as engineering work, with concrete deliverables.
BACKGROUND
Sani spent more than 15 years in web development and optimisation before No Hacks.
Freelance development first, then leading technical teams at Search Engine Journal, then Klarna payment integrations at Krokedil, then conversion strategy at Maksimer. Five WordPress core releases and a CXL certification in conversion optimisation along the way, plus projects with Instacart and Klarna. The method has stayed the same the whole time: find friction, fix it, measure, repeat.
He started the podcast in 2021, during the pandemic, from a small town in Sweden. What began as a networking project turned into 230+ conversations about what actually works in digital optimisation. Then AI agents began browsing the web, and most websites were completely unprepared. His goal now is to make No Hacks the primary resource on the agentic web: what's breaking, what works, and what to actually do about it.
The skepticism isn't new, even if the topic is. He grew up in 1990s Serbia, where propaganda was ambient. You learned early which phrases meant something was actually happening and which meant someone was trying to move you somewhere. Today's AI marketing language often triggers the same pattern recognition: manufactured certainty, overused superlatives, urgency that skips scrutiny. That's where No Hacks comes from. Not cynicism. Pattern recognition.
OUTSIDE WORK
Outside work, Sani runs.
Running keeps his head clear and the ideas moving.
ALSO OUTSIDE WORK
Sani has been a New York Knicks fan since 1993.
He started with Charles Oakley, whose whole game was playing hard from the first minute to the last, whatever the score said. Then came 1999 and a run to the Finals from the eighth seed, where the Spurs beat them in five. Then came twenty-seven years in which the honest answer was no, and for most of them the hope was not a title, it was that this year the team would finally not suck.
In November 2025, still in the drought, he gave a keynote at Conversion Hotel called The Jungle of Optimizing for AI Agents. The demo was an AI agent trying to buy him a flight to New York so he could go and watch the Knicks play. It failed, which was the point of the demo. He gave the talk wearing a 2000 Allan Houston jersey under his sweater, Houston being the one whose shot in the first round started that 1999 run.
Everyone knows what happened six months after this conference.
CREDENTIALS
232
Episodes
15+
Years
5
WP Releases
CAREER
Co-founder
Web Performance Tools, Inc.
Founder
No Hacks
CRO Strategist
Maksimer
Klarna Integration
Krokedil
CTO
Search Engine Journal
EXPERTISE
WORKED WITH
Search Engine Journal, Klarna, Instacart
ELSEWHERE
QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Who is Slobodan "Sani" Manic?
Slobodan "Sani" Manic is a website optimisation consultant, keynote speaker, and the founder of No Hacks. He created Machine-First Architecture, a method for building websites that work for human readers and AI agents alike. He is based in Portugal and has spent more than 15 years in web development and optimisation.
What is Machine-First Architecture?
Machine-First Architecture is the methodology Sani created for building websites that work natively for both human readers and AI agents. It has four pillars: Identity, how a business appears across AI search surfaces; Structure, the website as a data model; Content, claims that survive being extracted and quoted; and Interaction, the forms and checkouts agents complete for a user.
What does Sani do for clients?
Most projects start with the Machine-First Architecture Audit, a fixed-scope written diagnosis of a website at a published price. No Hacks Advisory is the retained track, with bi-weekly calls, monthly written briefs and a six-month term, by application. All of it is contracted through Web Performance Tools, the firm he co-founded in 2024.
What are Sani's credentials?
He is a CXL-certified conversion optimisation specialist and a WordPress Core Contributor with five core releases. He received the Experimentation Elite Community Contribution Award in 2025 and writes for Search Engine Journal, where he was previously CTO. He has worked with Search Engine Journal, Klarna and Instacart.
What is No Hacks?
No Hacks is the weekly podcast and publication Sani founded in 2021, covering how AI is changing the internet: the good, the bad, and the pointless. It has published more than 230 episodes alongside articles and a newsletter. He started it during the pandemic from a small town in Sweden.
Most projects with Sani start with a Machine-First Architecture Audit.
The audit is a fixed-scope written diagnosis of your website with a published price. No Hacks Advisory is the retained strategist track: bi-weekly calls, monthly written briefs, six-month engagement, application-based. All work, audits and advisory seats included, is contracted and invoiced through Web Performance Tools.
See the auditOr read about the retained advisory.