GoDaddy’s CEO said small businesses should use AI to automate work, but not lose sight of their brand.
As head of the domain registrar and web-hosting company, Aman Bhutani has a bird’s-eye view into what works for small businesses. The company said it has over 20 million customers, the majority of which are micro businesses, or those with fewer than 10 employees.
The entrepreneurs behind these companies consistently have passion and expertise, he said. However, they tend to have less technological capability — and even less bandwidth to do time-consuming tasks like creating and maintaining a website, said Bhutani.
“There is not enough time in the day,” Bhutani told Business Insider.
Today, business owners can use AI agents to do that type of work with minimal friction, Bhutani said, and they can use the tools to help run parts of their business.
A recent survey from GoDaddy’s small business research lab found that US entrepreneurs find content creation, marketing, and business advice as the top three areas where they see the most significant time savings with AI.
This is part of a series of stories from Business Insider’s conversation with GoDaddy CEO Aman Bhutani.
GoDaddy offers access to Airo, an agentic tool that builds websites and helps with other operational features. For instance, Bhutani said that Airo can create user logins for a small business’s customers to make website profiles, or send targeted customer outreach based on a user’s location or involvement with the business.
When to use AI — and when not to
He said that businesses should stick to using agents for tasks that they’re not as skilled at, or those that don’t differentiate them competitively.
Bhutani said humans should control how their product is unique and not delegate control over their customers’ experience. While AI can help with research — the owner ultimately needs to leverage their own knowledge when making decisions about what would work for the brand.
“It doesn’t mean that AI cannot suggest those things,” Bhutani said. “It can suggest, but the human should continue to control their branding.”
While AI tools can save time, “ultimately, you want the human to focus on their area of expertise,” Bhutani said, adding that the technology should “enable everything else.”
