Cloudways has published research suggesting UK digital and eCommerce businesses believe AI-driven search is reducing website traffic. The study also found businesses estimate website downtime costs them an average of GBP £376,000 a year during peak trading.
The findings point to a shift in how businesses judge online visibility as AI tools play a larger role in how customers find brands. Among UK respondents, 80% said AI-generated search experiences had reduced traffic to their websites over the past 12 months, while 83% said AI-powered recommendations were already changing how customers discover brands online.
Traditional search tactics also appear to be under pressure. Some 77% of UK businesses surveyed said traditional SEO alone no longer guaranteed visibility, and 81% said technical website performance now plays a bigger role in online visibility than content alone.
The research was based on a Censuswide survey of 1,000 decision-makers in digital and eCommerce businesses, including 500 in the UK and 500 in the US. Cloudways is part of DigitalOcean.
Traffic and performance
The report suggests businesses increasingly see website speed, uptime and reliability as commercial issues rather than narrow technical concerns. In the UK sample, 84% said improving website speed, uptime and reliability had become a bigger business priority over the past year.
A further 78% said AI-driven search and recommendation systems would increasingly penalise or deprioritise poorly performing websites. This reflects concern that AI systems may favour sites that are easier to access, navigate and serve reliably.
Suhaib Zaheer, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Managed Hosting at Cloudways, said: "The rules of online visibility are changing. For years, businesses competed by creating better content and improving SEO. Today, success increasingly depends on being discoverable, accessible and reliable not just for people and search engines, but for AI agents. If your website is slow, unavailable or difficult for AI agents to access and navigate, you're no longer just risking a poor customer experience - you risk becoming invisible."
Downtime costs
The outage figures underline the financial stakes. UK businesses surveyed estimated that one hour of downtime during peak trading costs an average of GBP £47,000, while the annual cost linked to downtime reached GBP £376,000.
More than a quarter (26%) said they had already lost revenue from website downtime over the past year. Another 28% said they had experienced customer issues during peak traffic periods, including failed transactions and slow checkouts.
Those numbers matter particularly for eCommerce groups, where interruptions during busy periods can immediately affect sales. The findings suggest resilience is increasingly being discussed in commercial terms, with businesses linking site availability directly to lost income and customer friction.
Reactive responses
Despite the growing focus on resilience, many organisations still seem to respond only after users are affected. One in five UK organisations, or 20%, said website issues were most commonly identified through customer complaints.
Nearly half (47%) said resolving server performance issues typically took between 30 and 59 minutes. This suggests many businesses still face material delays before restoring normal service when site performance weakens.
Some companies are taking a more regular approach to checks. Around 38% said they proactively reviewed or tested website infrastructure every month, while 29% did so every week. Only 11% said they continuously monitored performance through automated systems.
The survey also found that 38% of UK businesses were preparing for AI-powered search or shopping traffic, while 36% were improving website speed and performance. The same share said they were introducing automated scaling and optimisation.
Zaheer said businesses were entering a new phase in digital competition. "Businesses spent the last two decades optimising websites for search engines. The next decade will be about optimising them for AI. The organisations that succeed won't necessarily have the biggest marketing budgets. They'll be the ones whose websites are fast, resilient and ready to perform whenever customers - or AI - come looking."