Ranking first is no longer enough
Buyers increasingly ask AI tools what to buy and which companies to trust. A brand can rank highly, publish strong content and still be missing from the answer that shapes a customer’s decision. This report looks at how website speed, uptime and reliability are becoming part of how brands are found and recommended. It is based on research among 1,000 digital and e-commerce business decision-makers across the UK and US.
Key findings
- 76% say AI Overviews have already reduced their website traffic in the past 12 months
- 80% believe technical website performance now plays a greater role in online visibility than content alone
- $945 is the estimated average cost of every minute of website downtime for a digital business
- 9% continuously test their infrastructure through automated monitoring
Inside the report
- How AI is changing the way customers discover brands
- What website downtime costs: an estimated $945 per minute and $56.7k per hour
- Where confidence is running ahead of capability
- How businesses are preparing for AI crawlers, bots and traffic surges
- A 15-point checklist to check if your website is ready for AI-led discovery
Cloudways customer stories in the report
- CoolSafety: 99 Google PageSpeed score and zero downtime during high-demand periods
- Extra Chill: handled 30,000 visits in a single afternoon, generating more than $1,500 in advertising revenue in one day
- PicClick: scaled from around one million to more than 40 million monthly visitors without increasing its IT headcount
Download the report to see the full findings and check where your business stands.
Read Case Study > 
