Top web hosting provider Cloudways has released a new AI tool to help manage web servers - Google and Meta are already using AI to optimize performance at the data center level, and this new tool can now bring these capabilities to consumers at the server level as well.
Cloudways claims its new Copilot tool can resolve issues four times faster than traditional methods - but do you really want AI managing your web servers?
I spoke with Suhaib Zaheer, the company's SVP of managed Hosting, about how it works, what safeguards are in place, and how Cloudways Copilot can help businesses.
Is Cloudways Copilot based on Microsoft Copilot?
Cloudways Copilot is not the same as Microsoft Copilot. While both solutions share the same name, they are distinct products. We chose the name ‘Copilot’ for our AI suite at Cloudways because it acts as a copilot for our customers, assisting them in troubleshooting, identifying, and resolving issues that affect their servers.
What factors lead Cloudways to wanting to develop an AI diagnostics feature? Are there any specific pain points that Copilot combats?
We developed our AI-powered diagnostics feature to help our customers quickly identify and resolve website issues that slow down site performance. When considering how to adopt AI, we wanted it to be more than just a buzzword; we aimed for it to address the real everyday challenges our customers face. Our AI-powered diagnostics assist customers in tackling complex web stack issues, such as unoptimized data queries, DoS attacks, and aggressive bot crawling. This solution can detect and recommend a fix four times faster than we do today.
What safeguards are in place to manage potentially harmful automated resolutions?
In our first release covering the fix functionality, we will leave the action needed to fix the problem, at the discretion of our customer. Eventually, the AI layer determines what the problem is and how it should be fixed, but the implementation for the actual fix will be controlled by our platform and will mirror the implementation for different operations our customers trust us to perform on our platform today (such as deleting servers, adding applications, adding SFTP users, etc). We will leverage extensive guardrails to make sure the AI layers are diagnosing the problems and how to fix them as precisely as possible, and will continue to review these periodically to improve AI handling.
Can you share any difficulties you had creating Cloudways Copilot and how you managed to overcome those issues?
Training the AI model to accurately diagnose issues to the level of precision required for it to be truly valuable, was a significant challenge. We relied extensively on years of expertise gained through working with our customers and helping troubleshoot their problems. We also had to make sure the suggestions made by the AI system were as Cloudways specific as possible. Perhaps the most time consuming part was the hours spent manually reviewing each and every insight generated by Copilot to ensure it wasn't hallucinating and suggesting irrelevant information.
What's Cloudways' long-term vision for AI in managed web hosting?
Our vision is to utilize AI to transform managed hosting for businesses. We want our customers to enjoy an advanced level of managed hosting that features intelligent tools, making complex tasks simple with one-click solutions. Our AI-powered insights, announced this week, represent the first phase of this vision, with automated developer workflows and automated resolution set to launch in 2025.
We are committed to investing in AI that enhances our customers' web hosting experiences, allowing them to concentrate on what matters most — managing their core business.
