Many small businesses already tap into AI for market research, image and video creation, copywriting, and idea exploration.
Although this single-prompt approach is helpful, it has its limits. Enter AI agents.
Unlike traditional AI, which typically operates within a silo, AI agents can make decisions and take multi-step actions to achieve a predefined goal.
I caught up with Sachin Puri, CEO of Bluehost, to get his thoughts on how AI agents are reshaping how small businesses operate, where the biggest opportunities are, and which risks small businesses should be aware of when using them.
Why has Bluehost decided that now is the time to roll out AI agents to its users?
While interest in AI is high, only 16% of SMBs are using AI agents today.
Sachin Puri, CEO of Bluehost
The technology has finally matured beyond generating content and answering questions. AI agents can now understand context, orchestrate workflows, interact with business systems, and complete real business tasks. That makes them practical for small businesses, not just large enterprises with dedicated AI teams.
At the same time, the internet itself is evolving toward an Agentic Web, where rather than just assist people, AI Agents increasingly discover businesses, evaluate products, complete transactions, and interact with other agents on behalf of customers. Small businesses want to participate in that future, but most don’t know where to begin. Our research found that while interest in AI is high, only 16% of SMBs are using AI agents today, with complexity and the lack of SMB-focused solutions being the biggest barriers.
We believe that over time, participating in this new AI-driven economy won’t simply be an advantage; it will become a competitive necessity.
Our role at Bluehost is to make that transition simple. We’ve taken what we’ve learned from deploying AI across our own business and packaged it into purpose-built AI agents that are practical, affordable, and designed specifically for entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help small businesses compete and thrive in the Agentic Era, without requiring them to become AI experts
Most website builders now offer AI tools such as page, image, and content creators; how are AI agents different from these?
We are moving from AI that helps entrepreneurs create things to AI that helps them run their business.
Sachin Puri, CEO of Bluehost
Most AI tools in website builders today are generative. You ask for a page, an image, or a piece of copy, and the tool creates that individual asset. Those capabilities are valuable, but they’re largely point solutions. The business owner is still responsible for connecting the dots, coordinating multiple applications, and deciding what happens next.
That’s the problem we’re trying to solve.
Today, millions of entrepreneurs have become the integrators across dozens of applications and workflows. They spend their evenings, weekends, and early mornings moving information between systems, following up with customers, updating websites, managing inventory, booking appointments, and coordinating work that software still can’t do on its own. That’s time they could be spending with their families, serving customers, or creating value through their craft.
AI agents are fundamentally different. They don’t just generate content; they work toward a business outcome. They understand the goal, use business context, orchestrate multiple steps across applications, interact with data, and complete work on the owner’s behalf.
Take website creation as an example. Instead of generating one page at a time, an AI agent can understand the business, create a complete on-brand website, optimize it for search, publish it, and continue improving it over time. But the bigger opportunity begins after launch.
An AI Store Agent can monitor products, inventory, orders, and sales trends, then recommend or take actions to improve performance. An AI Front Desk Agent can answer customer questions using the business’s own knowledge, qualify leads, check real-time calendar availability, and book appointments automatically.
That’s the shift we believe matters. We are moving from AI that helps entrepreneurs create things to AI that helps them run their business.
We believe every small business will eventually have a digital workforce of AI agents working alongside its human workforce. The entrepreneur remains in control, but instead of acting as the integration layer between disconnected software, they become the conductor of a team—both human and digital—focused on growing the business.
You recently announced the launch of GatorClaw AI agent builder. What is this? Can small businesses use it? If so, how can they get the most out of it?
GatorClaw is our intuitive AI agent builder for businesses that want to go beyond using AI and start creating AI-powered workflows of their own.
While we’ll offer purpose-built AI agents for common business needs, we also recognize that every business has unique processes. GatorClaw gives entrepreneurs the flexibility to build AI agents tailored to how they operate.
It’s a visual platform built on the OpenClaw ecosystem that makes it incredibly simple to build, connect, deploy, and manage AI agents without assembling the underlying infrastructure or writing complex code, and without needing to be a developer or an AI expert. If you can build a website, you could build an AI agent. Running on Bluehost VPS, GatorClaw lets entrepreneurs automate sophisticated workflows through an intuitive visual experience.
For example, an agent could detect a new inquiry in Gmail, qualify the lead, summarize the customer’s needs, update a CRM, and notify the right person, all automatically.
My advice is to start with one repetitive process that consumes meaningful time and has clear rules. Measure the outcome, build confidence, and then expand from there. Every business is unique, and over time we believe every business will have a digital workforce of AI agents tailored to its own needs.
Where do you think the biggest opportunities currently are for small businesses when it comes to using AI agents?
AI agents excel at repeatable tasks that follow a defined business workflow. They can orchestrate both simple and complex processes, interact with business applications and data, and complete work across multiple systems. That’s where their real power lies. For small businesses, this means offloading repetitive administrative work so owners can focus on serving customers, growing their business, and doing what they do best.
When we asked small business owners where they would deploy AI agents first, repetitive marketing and sales tasks topped the list, including website and SEO updates, managing social media and digital advertising, and booking customer appointments.
Take the Bluehost AI Front Desk Agent as an example. The agent acts as a 24/7 receptionist and sales assistant, answering customer questions using the business’s own website and knowledge base, qualifying leads, and booking appointments directly into the business’s Google Calendar. The agent is trained on the business’s own content and is connected to real-time systems; therefore, it behaves more like a knowledgeable team member than a generic chatbot.
For small businesses with limited staff, that’s the real opportunity, not replacing people, but giving every entrepreneur a digital workforce that helps them accomplish more with the team they already have.
Most small businesses gain a competitive advantage by building real, human relationships with customers. How can they ensure that using AI agents doesn’t negatively impact that?
Small businesses don’t have to incorporate AI Agents into every workflow.
In fact, doing so would probably erode some of the customer trust they’ve built up. The trick is knowing where AI can streamline your work and where it’s likely to create complications. For example, using agentic AI to offload administrative marketing, sales, and operational work gives small businesses more time to spend with customers.
Use AI agents for efficiency, and not for relationship-building.
Are AI agents really like trusted employees? Can you set them a task and just let them get on with it unmonitored?
To some extent, you can treat AI agents like trusted employees, but inexperienced ones, at least early on.
Sachin Puri, CEO of Bluehost
To some extent, you can treat AI agents like trusted employees, but inexperienced ones, at least early on.
If you train them on a specific task and a clearly defined role, they will complete it and get the basics right. As your confidence in the technology grows, you can deploy them for more complex tasks.
They will learn from your data and workflows and be tuned to your business’s voice and tone. Early on, this will require some handholding and monitoring, always with humans-in-the-loop on the escalation path.
There is also an important difference between a general-purpose agent and one purpose-built for a specific small-business job. With a general-purpose agent, the owner may need to define the workflow, write detailed instructions, connect tools, and establish guardrails.
At Bluehost, we do much of that upfront work. We identify common small-business processes and build specialized agents around them, so the owner is not starting from a blank page.
In Bluehost AI Store, for example, specialized agents monitor products, orders, inventory, customers, payments, and sales channels. A coordinating agent brings those signals together, identifies what needs attention, and presents the owner with a prioritized action plan. The owner can also manage the store through simple conversation rather than navigating complex eCommerce systems.
That does not mean owners should disengage completely.
AI can monitor activity, flag problems, recommend actions, and handle clearly defined tasks, but people should remain involved in decisions affecting customers, finances, or brand reputation. The goal is an appropriate level of trust versus blind trust. You start with a focused, lower-risk process, review the results, and give the agent more autonomy as it demonstrates reliability.
What happens if an AI customer service agent answers a question incorrectly, such as quoting at half the actual cost or booking an appointment at the wrong time? Who pays for that mistake – Bluehost or the business owner?
No AI system should be presented as incapable of making a mistake.
Sachin Puri, CEO of Bluehost
That is exactly why customer-facing AI needs more than a generic model and a chat interface. It should be trained on authoritative business information, connected to current systems, given clear boundaries, and monitored like any other customer-facing channel.
With Bluehost AI Front Desk Agent, our team helps configure and train the agent using the business’s own website, documents, policies, and brand guidelines. Its Google Calendar integration uses real-time availability, which helps reduce scheduling errors. Businesses can also review performance, update information, and retrain the agent as prices, policies, or availability change.
No AI system should be presented as incapable of making a mistake. Bluehost is responsible for providing a reliable platform and implementation support, while the business is responsible for keeping its source information accurate and deciding what the agent is authorized to communicate or do.
What other risks should small businesses be aware of when using AI agents?
The risks are manageable, but businesses should look at both the security of the technology and how the agent is configured.
Agents should run on reliable, secure infrastructure, but infrastructure is only one part of the equation. Businesses also need to understand what information the agent can access, where that data is processed, and what actions it is authorized to take. An agent should have only the access and permissions required for its specific job.
Accuracy matters as well. An agent relies on the business information and systems connected to it, so outdated pricing, policies, inventory, or availability can lead to incorrect results. The best approach is to start with a focused, lower-risk use case, keep sensitive or consequential actions behind appropriate approvals, and expand the agent’s responsibilities as it demonstrates reliability. Purpose-built agents can reduce risk because the workflows, integrations, and guardrails have already been designed around a defined business need.
Do you believe that AI agents are going to kill traditional drag-and-drop website builders?
AI agents probably won’t kill traditional website-building tools in general. In fact, drag-and-drop website builders that enable an AI management layer will see acceleration and continue to provide efficiency for small business owners.
In professional settings, though, replacing website builders is just one facet of what AI agents could accomplish. Our hope is that once small businesses realize that AI agents can make website creation more efficient, they’ll be curious about what else these tools can do.
Agentic technology can also automate marketing and sales tasks, scheduling, routine emails, vendor invoicing, employee onboarding, database management, and reports and analytics, among other tasks.
AI agents won’t “kill” the traditional methods, but small businesses might find that deploying agents is a better option in almost every case and frees up time to focus on essential tasks to grow the business.
With many business leaders rolling back on AI tools due to unforeseen costs, will AI tools like the ones you are rolling out remain available and affordable for small businesses in the coming years?
Bluehost is committed to keeping our tools as affordable as possible, both now and over the next few years. We are doing this following two paths:
- Pre-packaging AI Solutions with a fixed monthly price so that businesses know exactly what they will be paying without fear of overruns.
- For customers who want to experiment more and with newer models and workflows, we are working on solutions that will deliver Tokens and Credits at very compelling economics.
We understand the needs of SMB customers like very few in the industry and so this two-pronged approach is a design principle of our new Agentic offerings.
We are working on quite a few AI and Agentic innovations focusing on the needs of SMBs.
We talk to small business owners every day and deeply understand their challenges, pain points, and needs. We are building Agents to help our SMB customers better run their business operations. Please stay tuned over the coming weeks and months as we unveil more purpose-built offerings for SMBs.
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