CloudFest proved one thing: AI sitebuilders aren’t ready… yet

CloudFest wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and if there was one word everywhere. AI.

No surprises there.

But once you looked past the hype, two big problems kept coming up again and again in the sitebuilder space. And they’re not small ones.

Problem one: prompting is breaking the experience

Here’s something that stopped us in our tracks.

One company told us their AI prompt page was seeing over 80% drop-off.

That’s not a small leak. That’s a flood.

Why? Because most small business users simply don’t know what to type.

Think about it. You’re a plumber, a café owner or a fitness coach. You’ve never written a prompt in your life. Now suddenly you’re expected to describe your entire business in a box and hope the AI gets it right.

It’s not yet intuitive. It’s not yet simple. And for a lot of users, it’s frustrating.

Even worse, once a site is created, using prompts to edit it can feel clunky and frustrating. It’s not currently how people expect to build or update a website.

Problem two: speed is killing first impressions

Now let’s talk about time.

We saw one new entrant taking almost 10 minutes to generate the first few pages of a site.

If you’re a new customer trying a product for the first time, are you really going to sit there and wait? Probably not. You’ll click away long before anything loads.

And just like that, the opportunity is gone.

The reality: AI is powerful… but when it comes to building websites, it’s not quite there (yet)

Let’s be clear. AI is going to play a huge role in the future of site building and the hosting industry. There’s no question about that.

But right now, there’s a gap between what the technology can do and what users actually need.

Small businesses want something simple. Something fast. Something reliable. Something that just works.

Not a blank prompt box.

Not a long wait time.

What happens next?

The companies that win won’t just be the ones with the smartest AI.

They’ll be the ones that make it usable.

That means:

• Removing friction from the start
• Making creation intuitive, not technical
• Delivering results quickly, not eventually

At BaseKit we’ve taken a balanced approach to AI. 

So while our platform now boasts a number of AI features, including onboarding, image creation and text generation – we don’t believe that in its current guise it’s a silver bullet. 

Instead, currently we see it as an optional enabler, something that helps accelerate the online success of small business owners and entrepreneurs. 

If you’d like to check these features out for yourself or speak with a member of our partnerships team, please get in touch to book a meeting.