GoDaddy generating more profits with fewer people; artificial intelligence may be a factor
GoDaddy Inc. hopes to serve its entrepreneurial clients better and is harnessing artificial intelligence to get the job done, with impressive results showing up on the bottom line.
The Tempe-based company recently unveiled AI tools that it says help to better serve customers while training its staff to become more efficient. One of these AI programs, called Airo, assists small businesses in handling a range of online tasks including answering emails, posting social media content, suggesting domain names and designing logos.
GoDaddy caters to entrepreneurs and small business owners, especially those with five or fewer employees. Many of these business owners have technical and social-media expertise.
“The average business is run by a family,” Mark McCaffrey, the company’s chief financial officer said in a recent chat with The Arizona Republic. “At the end of the day, trying to gather social media (messages) and then respond can be challenging for them.”
That's one way Airo can help. The software can evaluate questions and other messages sent by customers and then respond in a personalized manner. “Otherwise, a business owner might need to hire a person to do that effectively,” McCaffrey said.
GoDaddy's tools to help entrepreneurs
GoDaddy, founded in 1997 and now headquartered in Tempe, was the brainchild of entrepreneur Bob Parsons. The company assists small businesses in many ways. This includes helping them choose internet domain names, manage emails, interact with customers through social media, accept online payments and monitor online security.
Choosing domain names and recommending logo designs are important tasks for many businesses, yet these can be overlooked by owners, McCaffrey said. GoDaddy manages more than 840 million domain names, including those with suffixes such as .com, .net and .biz.
The company’s AI programs also can help spot problems such as if a customer's cell phone or computer isn’t operating efficiently because it’s using an older software version, and Airo can recommend changes.
GoDaddy began to roll out Airo to its roughly 21 million customers worldwide and will continue the effort. The company cited the contribution of AI in its most recent financial results, which showed a sizzling 76% jump in net income for the quarter ended June 30 compared to the same period one year earlier, on a revenue gain of 7%.
"We are making progress on our key initiatives, including growing discovery and engagement of our AI-powered experience,” said CEO Aman Bhutani, in a statement regarding the quarterly results.
AI's impact on employment
GoDaddy’s employment dropped about 10% from 2018 through 2023, over a stretch when annual revenue jumped 60% and net income ballooned from $77 million to $1.37 billion. Has the company's embrace of AI led to a reduction in jobs?
McCaffrey said no.
Instead, the employment change was the result of consolidating certain functions and boosting operational efficiency in other ways, he explained. GoDaddy didn’t provide an Arizona employee tally for the annual Republic 100 report on largest statewide employers. The company counted around 6,200 global workers at the end of 2023.
GoDaddy isn’t transitioning completely to AI, by any means. Many of its small-business clients continue to need “real people who are readily available and can provide care to customers who have different levels of technical sophistication,” as the company said in its most recent annual report. GoDaddy also is utilizing AI to help train its human staff to respond better to customer needs, McCaffrey added.
But GoDaddy's AI interactions will keep expanding from here.
“Through the thousands of daily conversations we have with our customers, we gather valuable feedback enabling us to continually evolve our products and solutions and respond to their changing needs,” the company said.
“It’s a journey that’s just getting started,” McCaffrey added.
Reach the writer at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com