As AI becomes deeply infused with business outcomes, leaders must look beyond mere prompt response visibility and toward a more complete picture of what it means to be AI ready.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Understanding how AI is changing the very fabric of the internet can help leaders invest in the right tools while maintaining the security of their digital properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless of industry, businesses are grappling with a major transition as we all move from a human-centric web to one built for both humans and agents. For over two decades, websites were built exclusively for the human experience. Today, we are seeing a massive leap in machine-to-machine interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Visibility is moving away from the classic gateway model of search engines toward an “answer engine” model. According to McKinsey\u2019s AI Discovery survey, half of consumers already intentionally seek out AI-powered search engines<\/a> like Perplexity, Gemini, and ChatGPT to guide their buying decisions. They projected that by 2028, over $750 billion in U.S. revenue will funnel through these AI-driven discovery platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This creates two distinct audiences for every web property:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For any business with an online presence, preparing for the future means investing in tools to ensure your digital stack can serve both audiences without compromising data security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are moving quickly into the agentic era of AI. Leaders are going beyond mere experimentation and surface-level investments, focusing on better integrating agents with existing systems to execute tasks faster. Gartner projects that by the end of this year, 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agentic AI<\/a> goes much further than simple prompt response. It is a system that can accomplish tasks with little supervision. Agents can make decisions, write code on the fly, analyze behavioral patterns, and interact with existing workflows or other agents to solve problems. While a generative AI system, like ChatGPT, creates content based on speech patterns and predicting the next best word, agents can take proactive, specific actions on behalf of their managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMany people think of AI as a chatbot. It’s much, much more than that. We’re seeing now that AI is integrating into existing applications and workflows,\u201d said Cloudflare Field CTO Daniel Kent in a recent webinar<\/a>. \u201cIt’s not just to provide a prompt in response. It is how can it make decisions for me? We\u2019re starting to see how AI can make your applications become more effective and have more benefit to the way you deal with your customers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While exciting, these changes aren\u2019t yet providing the ROI many early adopters had imagined. In fact, a study from MIT<\/a> revealed that despite $30\u201340 billion in enterprise investment, only 5% of organizations report any measurable returns. This may come down to leaders investing in tools that enhance individual productivity, like ChatGPT, instead of implementing unique systems intended to create structural change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think a shift we all have to make is thinking of AI as an execution accelerator. A lot of roles today focus on execution. With AI tools and LLMs, we\u2019re shifting into this world of orchestration,\u201d said WP Engine CTO Ramadass Prabhakaer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are describing the outcomes we want, what problems we\u2019re trying to solve, and then as the results come back, we are having to inspect and adapt them. It\u2019s a shift in expectations and behavior that is going to take some adjustment, but it allows us to think more about broader problems and use AI to accelerate the time to value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaders must create a culture where experimentation, testing, and learning are celebrated for AI adoption to result in true organizational change. Fear of failure, fear of causing additional problems, and fear of losing investment in tools that are deemed not worthwhile make it impossible to harness the true power of AI tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow do we measure success? It has to shift from \u2018how many articles did you publish,\u2019 or \u2018how many lines of code did you return,\u2019 and instead focus on \u2018what outcome were you able to achieve,\u2019\u201d Prabhakar said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same MIT study also found that companies that implement AI tools with the help of external experts are seeing twice the success rate of those building new systems internally. So, it seems that building an internal culture in which failure is not the enemy and investing in quality partnerships may be the keys to unlocking real revenue growth with AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the rise of machine-driven interactions, security is about managing the sheer volume and sophistication of automated threats. AI allows bad actors to scale attacks with unprecedented speed. Total Assure reports that AI-assisted attacks increased by 72% since 2024<\/a>. They attribute generative tools to a 1,265% surge in phishing attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To stay resilient, organizations must evolve their security strategies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n By leveraging a managed environment, businesses can automate complex web security measures behind the scenes, ensuring their tech stack is resilient against AI agents. WP Engine\u2019s Managed Platform<\/a> provides a secure foundation for business websites built on WordPress\u00ae[1]<\/sup> software, and additional tools, like Global Edge Security<\/a>, can harden edge security even further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
From simple chatbots to agent-powered decision making<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
404: ROI not found (yet)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Evolving web security to defend against AI threats<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How WP Engine supports security on the dual web<\/h2>\n\n\n\n