AI makes website performance a boardroom priority as digital businesses lose an estimated £336,000 a year to downtime

A new ‘AI Visibility Gap’ is emerging as AI rewrites how customers discover brands online, according to a new report from Cloudways, part of DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DOCN).

The inaugural From Search Rankings to AI Recommendations: The New Rules of Digital Visibility report reveals that, as AI search and discovery increasingly rely on website performance, digital businesses surveyed estimate the cost of website downtime during peak trading at an average of £336,000 a year¹.

Four in five (80%¹) businesses now believe technical website performance plays a bigger role in online visibility than content alone, while 81% say improving website speed, uptime and reliability has become a greater business priority during the past year. More than three quarters (77%¹) believe traditional SEO tactics alone are no longer enough to guarantee visibility.

The AI visibility race has shifted from content to performance

Businesses increasingly believe customers are no longer discovering brands solely through traditional search.

More than eight in ten (82%¹) say AI-powered recommendations are already changing how customers find brands online, while 76% say they believe AI-generated search experiences have reduced traffic to their websites over the past 12 months. A further 76% believe websites with poor technical performance will increasingly be penalized or deprioritized by AI-driven search and recommendation systems.

Suhaib Zaheer, SVP & General Manager, Managed Hosting at Cloudways by DigitalOcean, 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 is becoming a commercial risk, not just a technical problem

The growing importance of website performance is reflected in the financial impact of outages.

Nearly one in four (24%) businesses say they have already lost revenue due to website downtime during the past year, while 27% experienced customer issues during peak traffic periods, including failed transactions and slow checkout journeys.

Meanwhile, businesses estimate that just one hour of downtime during peak trading could result in significant financial losses. Among overall respondents, this equates to an average cost of £42,000 for every hour a website is unavailable.

Resilience remains reactive for many businesses

While businesses recognize the challenge, many are still identifying problems after customers have already been affected.

Just over one in five (21%) organizations say website issues are most commonly identified through customer complaints, while 42% say resolving server performance issues typically takes between 30 and 59 minutes.

At the same time, businesses are placing greater emphasis on website resilience. More than a third (37%) proactively review or test their website infrastructure every month, 29% do so every week and just under one in ten (9%) continuously monitor performance through automated systems.

Zaheer added, “Businesses spent the last two decades optimizing websites for search engines. The next decade will be about optimizing them for AI. The organizations 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.”

To explore the findings in full and learn how businesses can prepare for an AI-driven internet, download the AI Visibility Gap Report at: cloudways.com

Methodology:

The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 1,000 DMs (500 in UK and 500 in US) in digital (mid-market, scale-ups, enterprise digital teams) and eCommerce businesses. The data was collected between 24.06.2026 – 29.06.2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. We adhere to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

The average hourly cost (£42,000 global; $50,000 US) was calculated using the midpoint of each survey response band, weighted by the percentage of respondents selecting each option. Midpoints used were £500 (less than £1,000), £5,499.5 (£1,000–£9,999), £29,999.5 (£10,000–£49,999), £74,999.5 (£50,000–£100,000) and a conservative assumed value of £110,000 for the open-ended “More than £100,000” category.

Respondents who selected “Not sure” were excluded from the calculation. The resulting weighted average was rounded to the nearest £1,000.

The annual estimate (£336,000 global; $453,400 US a year) combines the weighted average revenue impact of one hour of downtime (Q13) with the weighted average number of downtime hours experienced in a typical three-month period (Q14). Midpoints were used for each survey response band. For downtime, these were 0 hours, 0.5 hours, 1 hour, 3 hours and 7.5 hours respectively. For revenue impact, midpoints of £500, £5,500, £30,000 and £75,000 were used, with a conservative assumed value of £110,000 for the open-ended “More than £100,000” category. Respondents who answered “Not sure” were excluded from the calculations.

The resulting figure was then converted from GBP to USD using the exchange rate on 3 September 2026; converted figures will vary with exchange rate movements.

Regional breakdowns

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about the anticipated impact of AI on online search, discovery and website performance and the future benefits of DigitalOcean’s and Cloudways’ offerings. Actual results may differ materially due to the risks described in DigitalOcean Holdings, Inc.’s most recent Form 10-K and subsequent Form 10-Q filings with the SEC, available at investors.digitalocean.com. Survey findings reflect respondents’ own opinions and estimates. DigitalOcean undertakes no obligation to update these statements except as required by law.

About Cloudways

Cloudways, a DigitalOcean service, offers businesses fully managed cloud hosting. Cloudways managed hosting delivers performance, security, reliability, and value with 24/7 support and is used by growing agencies and eCommerce businesses. Find out more at https://www.cloudways.com

About DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean simplifies cloud computing so businesses can spend more time creating software that changes the world. With its mission-critical infrastructure and fully managed offerings, DigitalOcean helps developers at startups and growing digital businesses rapidly build, deploy and scale, whether creating a digital presence or building digital products. DigitalOcean combines the power of simplicity, security, community, and customer support so customers can spend less time managing their infrastructure and more time building innovative applications that drive business growth. For more information, visit digitalocean.com.

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